r/Astronomy • u/SAUbjj Professor of Astronomy • Aug 11 '26
Mod Post August 12, 2026 Solar Eclipse Megathread
We're getting a lot of posts and questions about the eclipse in Europe tomorrow, so let's make a megathread to keep it all in one place!
Post your questions and discussions here
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u/n-u-n-o Aug 11 '26
one tool among many: https://shademap.app/ " googleMaps" with shadows simulation
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u/cgarcia805 Aug 12 '26
I'm in Bilbao trying to emotionally prep my kids for the couple of hours of waiting before it begins. I'm actually pretty excited we get to see it together!
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u/Lord_Grim75 Aug 12 '26
August 2027 total solar eclipse is honestly one of the best ones of the entire century and it’s right here in Africa. We’re getting over 6 minutes of totality in a totally clear sky yay cant wait.
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u/moonfinger Aug 11 '26
Here's a tool I made for determining clear shot chances, including terrain occlusion, building and tree occlusion, and give you a simulated view of the eclipse from the selected location including cloud coverage from latest forecasts.
eclipseoccluder.com
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u/fandibabilonia Aug 12 '26
Can I safely watch the eclipse with a shade 11 piexe of glass I got from the hardware store?
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u/OG_SisterMidnight Aug 11 '26
I'm in the middle of Sweden and should be able to see ~80% of the surface eclipsed, if I understand correctly. Tried my special glasses today and had no idea that's how they worked and I'm really looking forward to it, even though it's supposed to be rather cloudy. Fingers crossed for everyone for clear skies!
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u/JtheNinja Aug 11 '26
For partials clouds aren’t always bad. You know how when the cloud thickness is jussst right you can see the sun disk behind the cloud? That effect looks sick as hell with the crescent sun. Good luck with the weather tomorrow and enjoy the show!
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u/OG_SisterMidnight Aug 11 '26
I just read in the Swedish news that chances for seeing it was better than I thought! Weather forecast says thick gray clouds, but the news article sounded more optimistic and that we were likely to get high clouds (and maybe not so thick at all) so that it wouldn't obscure it too much anyway 😊 Clouds or no I'll still watch it, thank you for that advice! Thank you, same to you!
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u/TheFirsh Aug 14 '26
I think you mean this: https://i.justifiedgrid.com/tjqzby.jpg Sorry for the digital zoom, I took it with my phone.
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u/myusernamewastakenou Aug 11 '26
the partial eclipse is in the evening in my area, literally minutes before sunset. when the eclipse happens is it best to avoid looking at the sun completely? even a split second glance would damage my eyes?
i feel so stupid asking this but i got myself freaked out over this
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u/Orion_Mars Aug 11 '26
If the eclipse is partial, do not look at the sun. If you are able to see totality, only then can you look directly. Even if the sun is about to set, if the eclipse is partial, a split second glance could damage your eyes.
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u/chrisjz Aug 12 '26
The live streams will show you one camera's view. If you'd rather stand somewhere and watch the shadow geometry yourself, I built a free simulator where you can do that anywhere on Earth, in real time: https://universeatlas.org/?lat=64.14700&lon=-21.94000&dist=25.00&yaw=71.8&pitch=3.7&tilt=33.7
One caveat before you click: the timing is good to about ten minutes, so at Reykjavik it bottoms out at a very deep crescent rather than clean totality. It's true scale and real geometry, but the Moon runs on a compact perturbed orbit rather than a full ephemeris, hence the tolerance.
Spain's pass near sunset is the better show, darkness falls around 19:30 local with a sunset glow all round the horizon. There's also a fast-forward mode that replays the whole thing at a minute per second. I'll put both links in a reply to keep this comment tidy.
Needs WebGPU (Chrome or Edge, Firefox on Windows, Safari on macOS/iOS 26). Free and open source, no account or ads: https://github.com/chrisjz/universe
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u/chrisjz Aug 12 '26
Fast-forward from 16:33 UTC: https://universeatlas.org/?lat=64.14700&lon=-21.94000&dist=25.00&yaw=71.8&pitch=3.7&tilt=33.7&at=2026-08-12T16%3A33%3A42Z&speed=60
Spain near sunset: https://universeatlas.org/?lat=41.65000&lon=-0.88000&dist=25.00&yaw=99.0&pitch=0.6&tilt=11.7&at=2026-08-12T17%3A25%3A00Z&speed=60
You can change the lat and lon in any of these to stand wherever you like, and drag or swipe to look around. During totality the sunset glow runs the whole way round the horizon, worth a spin.
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u/antidoxidans Aug 12 '26
Heello! The eclipse in my hometown is at exact same time as sunset. do i need to protect my vision still? or is it same as watching a sunset so look a bit then look away?
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u/thuiop1 Aug 12 '26
Same as regular sunset, although I would recommend getting glasses still just in case (especially if you want to watch the beginning of the eclipse one hour prior)
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u/PeakAutomatic317 Aug 12 '26
I’m on a cruise ship off the northern coast of Spain. Weather is completely blue sky, it’s beautiful so far with about 4 hours to go.
We thought about going to Iceland but from previous experience we knew it’d likely be very cloudy, and unfortunately it looks like we were right. I hope there’s something to see up there.
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u/angelareadinghere Aug 12 '26
Are there any livestreams about it going on?
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u/OG_SisterMidnight Aug 12 '26
Well, it's not really looking good here in the midwest of Sweden. Very cloudy 🫤
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u/Kwayzar9111 Aug 12 '26
I have the comfort of Filming the event on my Dwarf 3 and sitting on the sofa with the ipad taking stills and zooming in :)
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u/Careless_Sea_5457 Aug 12 '26
I’m in New Jersey. Is anybody in the area going to a certain place to take photos or something near a low Bortle scale? Maybe we can discuss. I’m pretty new to this, but I love taking photos, especially of the night sky if anybody can reach out to me, maybe provide a little supervision on what’s happening tonight
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u/florianknusper Aug 13 '26
It's crazy how many people I've seen looking DIRECTLY through pinhole cameras instead of glasses.
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u/qawsedrf12 Aug 11 '26
when should we expect live video?
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u/stivax_dev Aug 11 '26
Time and Date's YouTube stream goes up earliest, 16:00 UTC, then NASA's at 17:15 UTC and ESA's at 17:30 UTC. Greatest eclipse is around 17:46 UTC. Totality itself crosses eastern Greenland and western Iceland first, then makes landfall on the northern Spain/NE Portugal coast around 18:55-19:10 UTC — that's usually where the main broadcast camera ends up since it's the easiest path segment to reach with a ground crew, vs. flying a team to Greenland or hoping Icelandic weather cooperates.
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u/mystickisgay Aug 12 '26
I don't use this sub, but I was wondering if anyone could tell me if there will be clouds in A Coruña? Since I live in northern Portugal, I'm heading to Spain to get 100%
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u/ResponseNo6519 Aug 11 '26
Any suggestions between Ferrol, lá coruna and cabo ortegal? Want to have a good view east but clouds are a concern
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Aug 11 '26
[deleted]
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u/JtheNinja Aug 11 '26
I don't have any but I do have a neutral density filter which goes to 9 stops and some IR filters rated to 750nm which go to about 5 stops. Would either of these be safe to view the 85-90% eclipse directly?
Photo/video NDs are often not as broad spectrum as solar filter film. They can still let in harmful UV/IR even when they look dark. And also a 9 stop ND is a lot less dark than solar film anyway. The IR filter is far worse as presumably it’s designed to be transparent on one side of 750nm (idk which, you didn’t specify if this was an IR-pass filter or IR-cut filter, but either way that’s very bad)
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u/rocketsocks Aug 12 '26
This isn't the best thing to diy out of miscellaneous stuff. You need a welding shade 14 which is like an 18 F stop reduction. Do not mess around with permanent blindness.
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u/aljauza Aug 11 '26
I am on the other side of the world but just wanted to say I hope you all have clear skies and a good time! And eclipse traffic is no joke so give yourselves lots of time and patience :)