On August 12, 2026 the shadow of the Moon crossed northern Spain bringing a total eclipse of the Sun to Europe for the first time since 1999. I was there!
I was able to witness the 2026 total eclipse of the Sun. It was short but spectacular! The sky was clear, though hazy from summer dust, making the normally silvery-white solar corona appear quite yellow to the eye and camera, for a unique eclipse.
But smoke from forest fires that had been raging in Spain was not an issue. Nor did we contend with dense dust from the Sahara blown in on “Calima” winds.
Note: Click or tap on images to bring them up to full screen.
And the summer thunderstorms I had feared would be our downfall, especially with such a low eclipse, held off for another couple of days — it was raining by departure day on the 14th. We were lucky — and happy!
This was my 18th total solar eclipse (TSE in the lingo). (See my log here.) The first was on February 26, 1979 from Manitoba. But this was my first TSE seen from Europe. While I had traveled to Spain in 2013 for the hybrid eclipse of November 3, that visit was to board a sailing ship in Malaga to intercept the path of totality in the mid-Atlantic.
So as the map above shows, I have now seen total eclipses of the Sun from all seven continents, including over Antarctica in November 2003, and from two oceans. And from land, sea, and in the sky (on two “e-flight” aircraft intercepts).
The 2026 eclipse was unusual in that the path of the Moon’s umbral shadow — where a total eclipse would be seen — did not travel from west to east as most paths do. Instead, it started in Arctic Russia, swept north over the North Pole, then travelled south over eastern Greenland and western Iceland, ending in the evening just before sunset in Spain, only then moving eastward as most paths do.
The 2026 eclipse had a similar path and was in the same 18-year “Saros” series (during which similar eclipses repeat) as the August 1, 2008 eclipse I and a small group of fellow Canadian eclipse chasers saw from the air over the Canadian Arctic. That 2008 path started in the middle of the night in Canada (where we saw it) with an eclipsed midnight Sun. It swept north over the Pole, then south down into Russia and China for a sunset eclipse, just like we saw in Spain this year.
The next eclipse in that Saros, on August 22, 2044, like the one in Spain this year, also sweeps south from the Pole and Arctic, to end before sunset — where?? Right over my home in Alberta!
This year I was honoured to serve as one of five “eclipse experts” for a group of 80 aspiring and experienced eclipse photographers, plus their companions, traveling with the very popular tour company Capture the Atlas, run by Dan and Ascen Zafra.
Do visit the CTA site and download their 2026 Capture the Atlas Magazine PDF to see their extensive offerings of photo-oriented tours worldwide. The book includes an interview with me about eclipse chasing, plus several other useful “how-to” articles on astrophotography. So it is a valuable resource apart from the tour listings.
In addition to us eclipse experts (above), for such a large group, Dan also brought on all of his other tour leaders, all of whom are also expert photographers, as well as the great CTA administrative staff who ably handled all the complex logistics. So just the experts, tour leaders, and staff made for quite a crew (below)!
So among all of us, the hope was we could handle every question about all the brands and models of cameras, the gear people were using, and advise on their plans. Even so, a couple of camera models still stumped us — I’m looking at you Nikon!
Each of us five experts had an expertise in some type of eclipse image or gear. It seemed to work! Everyone got good shots — though perhaps not all that they had planned. Heck, I made mistakes, too — repeating a couple from previous eclipses I had told people not to do!
While we five experts had each delivered on-line tutorials to the group in the months leading up to the eclipse, we all presented briefings (live at last!) the day before and the day of the eclipse.
Then, rare for any eclipse I had been to, we were able to do a full dress rehearsal on site the evening before the eclipse, on August 11, allowing everyone to test their gear and routine, with each of us 5 experts assisting about a fifth of the group, so about 16 people each.
My assigned guests were mostly first-time eclipse viewers, using basic gear. Colleagues looked after folks with more advanced gear such as telescopes and tracking mounts.
Our site was very well chosen — the Bodegas Nabal Winery in the Ribero del Duero wine region of northern Spain. We had exclusive use of the winery which looked west to the setting Sun, and had all the facilities needed for a comfortable eclipse in the heat of a Spanish summer. Waiters served us hors d’oeuvres during the partial phases! Luxury!
We could watch as the Sun set still in eclipse at 9:20 pm. Then finish eclipse day with a late evening celebratory banquet — and wine!
However, our base was at the Sercotel Hotel in Valladolid. It was there we presented our briefings, and our post-eclipse processing tutorials (above) using images we had shot the evening before and barely had time to look at! Talk about pressure!
For the eclipse (and the practice run) everyone was assigned a marked spot along the main plaza, grouped by expertise and type of gear, for us to more easily attend to.
We experts (above) and the CTA instructors and staff had our own assigned area below the main group. The group had clear instructions that once the eclipse began our assistance would end, with all guests then on their own, allowing us to pursue our own photo plans. (You can see Sarah’s livestream of the eclipse using a Dwarf III smart scope here on her channel.)
A principle challenge was the heat. White hotel towels were the order of the day, to help keep cameras cool in the +37º C temperatures. While the air did cool somewhat during the eclipse, some cameras were flashing “overheating” warnings never seen before. One of mine did, but made it through the entire eclipse. But this was a valuable lesson for the 2027 eclipse, which will be in even hotter locations for many eclipse chasers.
Being an overseas eclipse, I kept my gear to a minimum, unlike my previous TSEs in Idaho in 2017 and Québec in 2024 (the links take you to those blogs) when I could drive to the eclipse with a carload of telescopes and mounts.
The Main Image
My main goal was a type of eclipse image I had not shot before — an “in-camera” composite of the progress of the total eclipse from partial, through totality, to sunset, all shot without moving the camera, for accurate Sun sizes and positions. The low Sun (it was just 8º high at totality) lent itself to framing the sequence above the landscape with a modest telephoto lens, a 70-200mm at 70mm in my case.
I used SkySafari software to plan how to frame the scene — where to place the Sun, and when, at the start — so it would end up near the centre of the frame at totality, and include Regulus and two planets (maybe!), and not move off frame at sunset. It worked!
I shot the partials through a Maven magnetic solar filter (easy to pop off and on), and the totals unfiltered using a bracketed range of exposures, the longest of which provided the sky and ground as it appeared at totality. A short exposure blended in adds the brilliant red prominence at “9 o’clock” that was obvious even to the unaided eye. (You’ll see it in full-screen view.)
The final setting Sun was shot without a filter, as by then the Sun was very dim and red.
The Time-Lapse
My other image sequence is one I shoot at every eclipse, as it is easy to set up and get running on its own. This was a time-lapse, with no filter, started a few minutes before totality, with the camera taking images every second on auto-exposure. My ebook above provides the “how-to” details on shooting and processing such a series.
Do expand the video to full screen. Note the traffic on the E5 didn’t stop during totality! Except for one truck.
The wide 15-35mm lens at 15mm records the right-to-left (north-to-south) passage of the Moon’s dark shadow, stretched into a long ellipse over Spain.
At low eclipses like this the Moon’s umbral shadow appears as a cone of darkness with the eclipsed Sun at its apex. The time-lapse worked very well. And the resulting frames provide both high-res stills and a movie.
A more ambitious time-lapse (above) from one of the CTA instructors, Francesco Dall’olmo, shot from a balcony on the winery records the full sequence with all of us in the foreground. Superb!
We did set up a white ground sheet, and had the white walls of the winery behind us, where I thought we might see the subtle rippling of shadow bands just before and after totality. We looked both pre-C2 and post-C3 (and called out to remind people to look) but didn’t see any shadow bands. I’ve seen them at low eclipses so the Sun’s altitude was not the issue, but likely the haze was.
Our last look at the eclipse was of its final partial phase as the Sun set. It had been a long day, with every eclipse bringing some stress. But we did not have clouds to contend with, unlike some sites elsewhere in Spain (mostly on the coasts, as had been predicted) or at sea in the Mediterranean. And in Iceland! But the ships in Scoresby Sound in Greenland saw it.
So we had good reason to celebrate that evening and toast our success with a local vintage from the wine cellars below. It had been an experience to remember for a lifetime. But not once in a lifetime — as it can be repeated …!
Next Year’s Eclipse — Back to Spain!
The next total solar eclipse is only 12 New Moons — a lunar year later — on August 2, 2027. It is the second in a rare trio of annual TSEs from 2026 to 2028 I have written about in my “How to Capture …” ebook linked to above.
The 2027 TSE belongs to another Saros series notable for its over-six-minute-long eclipses, such as the long eclipses of July 11, 1991 (in Mexico) and July 22, 2009 (in China and the Pacific), and the coming August 12, 2045 eclipse across the U.S. Next year’s eclipse has a path that crosses Spain, Gibraltar, and North Africa (maximum eclipse is in Luxor, Egypt), so cloudless skies are likely. But heat will be guaranteed!
And as I show above, brilliant Venus near the Sun, with bright Jupiter and Mercury not far away, all amid the winter stars, will make for a spectacular eclipse sky next year. You can see my 2027 shooting plan for Spain in the SkySafari charts above. From Egypt the Sun will be nearly overhead.
Capture the Atlas is offering a similar Summit package for the 2027 total eclipse, to southern Spain. See the page here. I understand the tour is already sold out, but has a waiting list. I will be on that trip along with four eclipse chasing colleagues, some returning from this year, as the resident experts.
If you wish to see a total eclipse — or see another — the 2027 TSE is the one to get to — somewhere! Details of locations and times can be found at EclipseAtlas.com.
Happy Moonshadow chasing!
— Alan, August 22, 2026 (amazingsky.com)
The Amazing Sky 