Total Solar Eclipse 12/06/26 - Léon, Spain (travel blog)

Final pictures at the end of the post!

Chasing the Total Solar Eclipse in Spain

So thisThis year I traveled to Spain to see the total solar eclipse.eclipse, Itand wasit turned out to be quite the adventure,adventure. fullFull of unexpected surprises.surprises, near-misses, and, in the end, a healthy dose of luck.

Planning and the First Setback

I used this website to checkfigure whatout placeswhich locations were statistically less likely to havebe clouds.clouded Iover pickedon eclipse day, and settled on somewhere around LéonLeón. andI booked an Airbnb there.and thought that part of the trip was sorted.

TheThen came the first unlucky event happened when I got a message from my airbnb host, saying that my reservation was cancelled due to the house being sold. This happened justbreak: a few months before the eclipse.eclipse, my Airbnb host messaged to say my reservation was cancelled because the house had been sold. I rushedscrambled to seefind ifsomewhere other places where available,else, but as expected, almost everything nearby was bookedalready already.booked. Eventually I was able to findfound a place inat the San Isidro ski resort.resort, Itpricier wasthan aI'd bit expensivehoped, but I haddidn't nohave othermuch choice.

Scouting and Gear Prep

AAbout a month or so before the eclipseeclipse, I started looking forscouting good placesvantage points near San Isidro to shoot the eclipse from.Isidro. I found a promising spot at high elevation and was pretty happy with thisit, verythen highturned place.my Iattention alsoto started training and doing some tests withtesting my equipment.

I really wanted to get a close-up shot of the sun soto I could have nicecapture detail onin the prominences and Bailey'Baily's beads. My only option for that kind of reach was to use my 8 8-inch f/3.9 newtonianNewtonian. Normally my deep-sky scope, and total overkill for this, but it was what I usuallyhad. use for deep sky. Totally overkill, but I had no other option. This meant that I needed to use my eq6 sinceSince the telescopescope was too heavy for my lighter eq5.EQ5 Thismount, I had to bring the EQ6 instead, which meant thata Ilot was looking at quite heavymore baggage to bringhaul along with me. along.

For the camera, I alsowent decided to usewith my Canon 6D insteadrather ofthan my ASI294mcZWO proASI294MC Pro, since itmost eclipse-photography software seemed that most of the eclipse softwares wereto only compatiblesupport with DLSRs.DSLRs. I used an thisonline websiteexposure calculator to calculatework theout exposuressettings for the different partsphases of the eclipse. IThat wasworked able to calculate the exposure timesfine for the partial phase, but the hugetelescope's large aperture of the telescope wasbecame a problem for near totality and totality,during totality itself since itthe required exposure times were faster than my camera could do.manage.

The solutionfix was to artificially reducestop the telescope aperture.down. I could do this byBy using the telescope cap bywith removingits thesmall removable cover onopen, the small opening. ThisI reduced the effective aperture to 750.5mm ÷ 55mm ≈ f/13.66, which gavebrought me acceptablethe exposure times.times back into a workable range.

IFor picked SETnC asautomating the softwareshots, forI automaticallychose runningSolar theEclipse exposures.Timer 'n Capture (SETnC). It was very aligned withfit my philosophy ofperfectly: lettinglet the telescope dohandle itsthe thingtechnical side automatically so I could enjoyactually watch the whole eclipse with my own eyes. ItSetup, was easy to setup, testtesting, and use.use were all straightforward.

SomeIn the weeks before, I started testingbefore the equipment.trip, I printed a this solar finder, which made rough framing reallyquick easy.

and

painless.

TrainingOverall, wasdialing easier than I thought. I was able to nail downin the process intook roughlyonly doa couple of afternoons. The onlyone real unknown was the exposure times,timing butfor Itotality reallysince didn'tthere havewas ano good way to test it,that in advance, so it wascame adown matterto ofcareful calculation, crossing my fingersfingers, and hoping for the best.

A

few

The weeksRoad wentto bySan andIsidro

D

As daythe wasdays gettingpassed closer.by, I kept anxiously looking atrefreshing weather reportsforecasts, to see aboutwatching cloud coverage.coverage swing up and down with no clear pattern. It variedwas anerve-wracking, lot day to day which didn't help. Butbut I wasstayed cautiously confident.

Then,On August 11th, we finally packed ourthe bagscar and on the 11th of August we set sailoff tofor San Isidro. We stopped in Salamanca for some lunch and to do some sightseeing.sightseeing Allalong andthe all,way. counting with allBetween the stops we did alongand the way,driving, it wasended up being a wholefull day ofon drivingthe road, and we endeddidn't uparrive arrivinguntil atclose aroundto midnight.

Then,

Eclipse the second problem. At around halfway there, I noticed that I forgot to bring the solar glasses (that I bought like almost one year beforehand ;_;). We went to countless pharmacies and opticians but no dice, the glasses were "agotados" everywhere. Nevertheless, we continued looking.

Day

On the day ofitself, the eclipse,forecast thefor forecastsmy weren'original chosen spot wasn't looking sogreat. great on the spot I picked. It was notNot terrible, but any amount of clouds wasat all felt unacceptable forgiven me.everything I'd put into this. So I kept lookingscanning lookingforecasts and endedeventually upsettled pickingon a spotnew location in Cea, which accordingwas to the forecasts would have a predictedpredicting 0% cloud coverage.

DuringWe spent the day we exploredexploring around San IsidroIsidro, stopping forto sightseeingtake aroundin the beautifulstunning mountainsides.mountain Wescenery. As the hours passed, we started tonoticing seeother eclipse chasers, people camping out and setting up tripods forin theanticipation. eclipse.

For

To our surprise,delight, we stumbledran uponinto a group of Portuguese tourists whichwho had also traveled allmade the waytrip therespecifically to seefor the eclipse. They were all incredibly nicewarm and welcoming.welcoming, They offeredinvited us coffeeover for coffee, and we spendspent somea timegood talking andwhile nerding overout thetogether eclipseabout astronomy and photography.

When we mentioned we'd forgotten our solar glasses, they didn't hesitate, they had a couple of spare pairs and gave them to us on the spot. I can't thank that group enough. They saved our eyes, and honestly, they made the whole experience even better. Maybe we'll meet them again on next year's solar eclipse?

Setting Up at the Spot

After that, we headed to the spot I'd picked. It was incredibly hot. When we arrived, a couple of people were already there. We mentionedcarefully drove around bushes and tall grass to reach the highest point, where I could start setting up the gear.

As time went on, more and more people gathered at our spot. We could hear Spanish, Portuguese, English, and French all around us. It was amazing to see so many people, from so many places, brought together by the same eclipse.

Totality

The moment was approaching, and we watched the moon and sun slowly creep together. SETnC started taking pictures on schedule. We all stared up at the sun, glasses on of course, anxiously waiting for totality.

As totality neared, SETnC's sound cue told me to remove the solar filter so it could start capturing the diamond ring and Baily's beads. From that wemoment on, I completely forgot about the setup.

Seeing totality with the naked eye is something else entirely. It far surpassed my expectations, and I savored every second of it. Hearing the collective gasp and awe ripple through the crowd around us made it even more unforgettable.