Magnetic connectivity of various spacecraft to the Sun and the first arriving particles at these spacecraft. Panel a: Ecliptic plot showing the spacecraft connectivity to the source surface which is represented by coloured diamonds for STEREO-A (red), BepiColombo (yellow), Earth (green), SolO (blue) and PSP (purple), using PFSS (blue–pink) and MHD field lines (colour-coded by spacecraft). The black arrow corresponds to the direction of CME propagation. The star symbol denotes the location of one of the herringbone sources at 0° latitude. Panel b: Energetic electron intensities at ∼100 keV as observed in different viewing directions by STEREO-A/SEPT (orange curves) and Wind/3DP (blue curves) near Earth. The viewing directions observing the first arriving electrons are indicated by the stronger coloured curves.