Very cool! Just remember the one truth about solar eclipses: total or nothing.
While I don't want to dismiss partial eclipses entirely, please don't think that partial eclipses are "almost the same" as total eclipses. One is a curiosity, the other is a memorable life event.
In Spain it's a trio of consecutive eclipses from 2026 to 2028 (the last one annular). To view the second one I don't even need travel anywhere.
Will be in Saragossa on Wednesday and gonna use Canon binos with image stabilization, the partial phase with filter and then some precious seconds without (a scary moment, I'll rely on an alarm to prevent my eyes to get damaged when the totality is over). Some people generally advised to skip any instruments and just enjoy it with your own eyes for the first time, but I'm too curious about corona details to let this opportunity pass.
I saw the one in Canada back in 2024, I don’t think I have ever witnessed such an amazing phenomenon like that before, a white glowing ring in the sky!! I will see if I can catch the 2027.
I was able to catch the last solar eclipse in the US, and it was amazing. I'm a little sad I won't be able to catch this one, especially in Mallorca. Seeing the eclipse low in the sky, an hour before sunset. That has got to be a phenomenal view.
I think this tool is super neat. I love the shadow simulation for the terrain. Very well done!
I'm one of the two developers of a weather app, so we had cloud data for the whole path and turned it into a plain page: https://forecastbar.com/eclipse-2026/ It gives cloud cover at the actual eclipse hour rather than a daily average, city by city, free and nothing to install.
As of tonight it splits sharply. Iceland is largely a write-off: Reykjavik and the Westman Islands are both 98% cloud at eclipse hour and flat all evening, so it isn't a timing problem you can wait out. The Westfjords are the exception — Ísafjörður is 75%, still poor but the best number in the country by a wide margin, and it's inside totality at about 1m33s.
Northern Spain is the good half: Burgos 8%, Zaragoza 8%, Bilbao 11%, Tarragona 13%. Palma de Mallorca is at 1% and it's in the path; Madrid and Lisbon, just outside it, are 1% too.
It's one commercial model four days out, so treat it as a second opinion. Where it disagrees with AEMET or the Met Office, believe them. We refresh it each morning until Wednesday.
Let's not forget who makes all these open-source interactive projects possible: Works by the US Government and Military are in the Public Domain by law. All the maps and data you got, NASA and the Naval Observatory generated it with their systems, their sensors, their satellites, their employees and enlisted men.
In the Dwarkesh podcast about relativity they talked about one of the ways to prove einsteins theory was to observe a total eclipse - stars that should not be visible were predicted to bend their light rays and be able to be seen. Explorers launched grand expeditions in the early 1900s to be the first to witness and prove the phenomenon.
Made me yearn for a more heroic time.
They kept being thwarted by weather, clouds etc and eventually scientists worked out the theory could be easily proven by the red shift of stars by direct observation.
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[ 0.31 ms ] story [ 22.3 ms ] threadWhile I don't want to dismiss partial eclipses entirely, please don't think that partial eclipses are "almost the same" as total eclipses. One is a curiosity, the other is a memorable life event.
Will be in Saragossa on Wednesday and gonna use Canon binos with image stabilization, the partial phase with filter and then some precious seconds without (a scary moment, I'll rely on an alarm to prevent my eyes to get damaged when the totality is over). Some people generally advised to skip any instruments and just enjoy it with your own eyes for the first time, but I'm too curious about corona details to let this opportunity pass.
I’m @sneak.07 on Signal, let’s meet up.
I think this tool is super neat. I love the shadow simulation for the terrain. Very well done!
As of tonight it splits sharply. Iceland is largely a write-off: Reykjavik and the Westman Islands are both 98% cloud at eclipse hour and flat all evening, so it isn't a timing problem you can wait out. The Westfjords are the exception — Ísafjörður is 75%, still poor but the best number in the country by a wide margin, and it's inside totality at about 1m33s.
Northern Spain is the good half: Burgos 8%, Zaragoza 8%, Bilbao 11%, Tarragona 13%. Palma de Mallorca is at 1% and it's in the path; Madrid and Lisbon, just outside it, are 1% too.
It's one commercial model four days out, so treat it as a second opinion. Where it disagrees with AEMET or the Met Office, believe them. We refresh it each morning until Wednesday.
Let's not forget who makes all these open-source interactive projects possible: Works by the US Government and Military are in the Public Domain by law. All the maps and data you got, NASA and the Naval Observatory generated it with their systems, their sensors, their satellites, their employees and enlisted men.
What makes this eclipse VERY different is the low angle (3-4 degress), so the viewpoints need to be planned well.
Also the clouds further to the west are extremely important, for Spain there is
https://www.aemet.es/es/eltiempo/prediccion/destacados/p5_t?...
as well as
https://visualizadores.ign.es/eclipses/2026
Made me yearn for a more heroic time.
They kept being thwarted by weather, clouds etc and eventually scientists worked out the theory could be easily proven by the red shift of stars by direct observation.