Last night, a total solar eclipse swept across a slice of the planet, and photographers from around the world converged on Europe to catch it. The path of totality carried the Moon’s shadow over parts of Greenland, Iceland, northern Russia, the Atlantic Ocean, Spain, and a small corner of Portugal — and the images that came back are spectacular.
Astrophotographer Angel Fux headed to central Spain, working in collaboration with Nikon to place herself squarely in the path of totality. From there she captured the Moon fully occulting the Sun, along with solar prominences — those fiery loops of plasma — flicking out from behind Earth’s natural satellite.
The timing made this one unusually tricky. Totality struck at roughly 7:30 p.m., meaning the event finished after sunset, below the horizon. Shooting the Sun that low in the sky is a technical nightmare. “Photographing the Sun at such a low altitude also introduces significantly more atmospheric turbulence and haze,” Fux told PetaPixel, “which can soften fine detail and requires checking focus much more frequently.” It was her first eclipse, but she reckons it will stay a favorite for years, thanks to those genuinely rare conditions.
Fellow astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy flew to the Balearic island of Ibiza with a single mission: to capture the Moon’s shadow alongside the Sun’s corona. After a marathon of flights, layovers and taxis, he teamed up with a ship’s captain to position the vessel exactly where he needed it, ending up north of Ibiza in the Balearic Sea.
“The moment of totality took my breath away,” McCarthy said. “The warm sunset colors split in two, and darkness fell over the water. Gasps from other sailors could be heard over all my cameras’ rapid-firing photos.” He titled the resulting shot ‘Shadows on the Balearic Sea’, now available as a print from his website.
The pros weren’t alone. NASA dispatched photographer Bill Ingalls to San Millán de los Caballeros, also in Spain, to document the moment of totality. And in a more athletic take, professional skateboarder Danny Leon pulled off what he called “the trick of his life”, airing out of a ramp while photographers Jose Angel Izquierdo and Gonzalo Gonzalez De Vega framed him against the darkened sky from a distance.
If you missed it, geography is on your side — depending on where you live. Spain only has to wait another year before another total eclipse crosses its southern regions. In the U.K., where last night’s coverage topped 90%, the wait is rather longer: Brits won’t see another totality until 2090.
