SUNSET ECLIPSE IN SPAIN Total Solar Eclipse of 12 August 2026 Spain, Villahoz, Ermita de la Virgen de Matrigal, +42°05'30.5" N, 3°54'16.3" W, 848 m a.s.l. Local circumstances: C1 17.33.49, C2 18.28.52, max 18.29.45, C3 18.30.37, Sunset 19:21 (effective 19.15), C4 19.22.12 UT, duration 1 min 45 s by Lorenzo Comolli

Daytime and instrumentation images


Before sunrise (h7.25) me and Emmanuele placed the main setup and I was even able to polar align! This granted a very good tracking of the Sun.
My setup at left is a TEC140+ASI6200MM+focal reducer @740 mm (APM-Riccardi 0.75x) on a Scorpio Astro SA-17 "onstep" mount.


Sharpcap feature "Polar Align" is really black magic! About 20 min before sunrise it was able to detect a lot of stars near Polaris, useful to precisely polar align the mount.


Sunrise shot at 7.26, about 13 hours before totality!!! A very long and hot day is starting.


My setup covered with a reflective bag, protecting all the instruments from the very strong sunlight and heat.


Parking of the Villahoz Ermita de la Virgen de Madrigal was really full of RV and cars. Even more cars arrived later.


Italian friends with their RV (from right my friends Norberto Milani and Alberto Ghiotto).


Many of the telescopes placed on the top of the hill of the Ermita. Much more appeared very late near the time of the eclipse start.


Same as above, but toward the South.


The selected location of GAT, Gruppo Astronomico Tradatese, in front of the Ermita, with an expedition of 30 people led by the founder and president Cesare Guaita.


Another view of the GAT location.


Briefing after lunch to fine tune all the automatic sequences, together with Emmanuele Sordini (thanks for the shot).


Actual location and Eclipse parameters of my setup in Villahoz.


Forecast from NOAA GFS model 54h before the eclipse. This model and others confirmed that the selected location of Villahoz was the best location.
This considering that going North-West the cloud cover increase even if Totality was 1-2° higher.
On the other side going toward East or South-East it is too close to the mountains with probability of orographic clouds and the Totality is lower.


My setup pointing the Sun about 1h before C1.
PC is a HD 17" with very fast SSD 4 TB and 5000 MB/s write speed, 64 GB RAM, the same used for the 2024 eclipse in USA Arkansas.
Homemade display shield is fundamental to view the display without any reflection from strong daylight, it is homemade of "polywave" black plastic.
Power supply of the PC from a 100 Wh USB-C power bank with power delivery 65 W, plus another PB, giving ~10h total duration.
Power supply of the ASI6200MM camera and SA-17 mount is from a 50 Ah 12.8V LiFePo4 battery giving ~17h total duration.


My family plus one kid from our same hometown. Thanks to Valeria for the image!


My setup during the partial phase.


Screenshot of Sharpcap during the partial phase.


Temperature and relative humidity datalogger in shade of a small tree near the main setup.


Luxmeter datalogger.


Emmanuele Sordini and his setup.


Andrea Conci and his complex setup.


A lot of eclipse images in a single shot ;-)


Sunset. The Sun was so faint that it was possible to image with the main setup of TEC140 without any solar filter!


A group shot around my setup with part of my family and many friends. Thanks to Alberto Ghiotto for the image!

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