Before last summer’s eclipse, the last total eclipse visible from Spain was on 2 October 1959, and it could only be seen from the Canary Islands. The last annular eclipse was on 3 October 2005, and it crossed the peninsula from Galicia to the Valencian coast. The IGN (Spain’s National Geographic Institute) says both, and adds a third point: mainland Spain had not seen a total eclipse since 1912. According to the history book the IGN itself publishes, that one was a hybrid eclipse with barely a few seconds of totality.
1959: night in mid-morning on Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura
According to English Wikipedia, the path of totality on 2 October 1959 began in north-eastern Massachusetts and crossed the Canary Islands, Morocco and what was then Spanish Sahara before running across Africa to Somalia. According to NASA’s path table (Fred Espenak), at 11:44 UTC the central line of the shadow was passing over the sea north of Gran Canaria, with the Sun 54° up, a path about 110 km wide and 2 min 40 s of totality at the centre.
On its eclipse website the IGN publishes a book by Manuel Vázquez Abeledo, Eclipses solares en España (1000-2005) (Solar eclipses in Spain, 1000-2005), with a chapter on that day. According to the book, the path ran from north-west to south-east over Tenerife, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura and left both provincial capitals in darkness for a few minutes. The light began to fade at 10:17 that Friday morning and the darkness was complete at 11:41.
On Tenerife, totality passed over La Orotava, Santa Úrsula, La Victoria, La Matanza, Tegueste, La Laguna, Santa Cruz de Tenerife, El Rosario and Arafo, although the book records no scientific mission on the island. On Gran Canaria it was seen in the city of Las Palmas, Santa Brígida, Ingenio, Telde and San Bartolomé de Tirajana. The Société Astronomique de France set up its mission at La Isleta to film the eclipse in colour, and there the weather was kind.
Most astronomers went to Fuerteventura, to the Jandía peninsula, following the climate experts: an American expedition, two British teams and a Spanish one from the Madrid Observatory, with Rafael Carrasco and Enrique Gullón. The day dawned cloudy and some of the cloud spoiled the view of totality; the book speaks of tremendous disappointment. The Dutch team, which set up its instruments at Gran Tarajal and Tarajalejo, had better luck.
One detail from those days would not happen today. Newspapers encouraged people to smoke pieces of glass to look at the Sun, and the book itself calls this irresponsible because of the risk of blindness. Today the protection is a filter that meets the EN ISO 12312-2 standard (how to recognise one).
1952: a total eclipse in Spanish Guinea
Seven years earlier there was another total eclipse in a territory that was Spanish at the time. Vázquez Abeledo’s book devotes a chapter to the one on 25 February 1952 in Spanish Guinea (today’s Equatorial Guinea): the expedition set up in Cogo, on a low hill two kilometres from the port, with people from the Astronomy and Geodesy Seminar of the Complutense University, the San Fernando Observatory and the Ebro Observatory. The weather was good that day.
2005: the ring over the peninsula
On 3 October 2005 the Moon passed in front of the Sun when it was too far away to cover it completely, and left a ring. According to the book, the annular path was between 180 and 190 km wide, came ashore between Cape Touriñán and Cape Finisterre at 8:51 GMT and crossed the peninsula to the east coast. NASA’s table gives a little over 4 minutes of ring at the centre of the path over Spain.
The ring was seen in 14 provincial capitals. It lasted more than 4 minutes in Pontevedra, Zamora and Madrid, and more than 3 in Ourense, Salamanca, Ávila, Segovia, Guadalajara, Cuenca and Valencia.
English and Spanish Wikipedia give the capital 4 min 11 s of ring, from 8:56 GMT, or 10:56 on the clock. In an annular eclipse the Sun is never completely covered, and in Madrid about 90% of it was covered: the filter had to stay on the whole time.
The weather helped: according to the AEMET (Spain’s state weather agency) report cited in the book, the only cloud in the eclipse zone was in the south-east. Between 15,000 and 20,000 people gathered at the Madrid Planetarium and 16,000 pairs of glasses were handed out free. Many schools kept pupils in at break time so that they wouldn’t look without protection; many others gave them glasses and organised a viewing. Spanish Wikipedia also records the drop in temperature: 3.5 °C in Madrid, measured by a team from UNED, Spain’s national distance-learning university, and 2.8 °C on average in Valencia. And according to the book, an annular eclipse had not been seen from mainland Spain for 241 years.
And the last total eclipse on the mainland?
Here the sources need careful reading. The IGN’s website says mainland Spain had not seen a total eclipse since 1912. That was a hybrid eclipse: total along a very narrow line across the north-west of the peninsula and annular further on, in France. With the NASA data the book cites, at the point of greatest eclipse, in the Atlantic off Portugal, the path of totality was 1 km wide and totality lasted two seconds. Several witnesses quoted in the book saw it as partial or annular.
The same book, when it reaches 2005, counts a hundred years since the last total eclipse on the mainland. That is the one we cover in the history of eclipses in Spain (in Spanish).
The wait ended last summer, and on 2 August 2027 totality returns, this time in the south: 105 municipalities in Cádiz, Málaga, Granada and Almería, plus Ceuta and Melilla. The Canary Islands, the 1959 hosts, only get a partial eclipse this time (the 2027 eclipse in the Canary Islands). What comes next, with the annular eclipse of January 2028, is summarised in our learn section.
Sources: Información astronómica: eclipses de Sol y Luna — IGN (in Spanish: last annular in 2005, last total in 1959 and only from the Canaries, the mainland without a total since 1912); Eclipses solares en España (1000-2005), by Manuel Vázquez Abeledo — IGN (in Spanish: the chapters on 1912, 1952, 1959 and 2005); Solar eclipse of October 2, 1959 — Wikipedia (route of the path); Path of the Total Solar Eclipse of 1959 Oct 02 — NASA (central line, width, duration and the Sun’s altitude over the Canaries); Solar eclipse of October 3, 2005 — Wikipedia and Eclipse solar del 3 de octubre de 2005 — Wikipedia (in Spanish: duration and coverage in Madrid, the drop in temperature); Path of the Annular Solar Eclipse of 2005 Oct 03 — NASA (duration on the central line over Spain); municipalities with totality in 2027: IGN — eclipses.ign.es (in Spanish).
If you would like something to keep from the eclipse, the shop prints T-shirts, mugs and posters with the name of your town, the time of its maximum and its seconds of totality. See the merchandise →
Remember: never look at the Sun without proper eye protection (filters made to EN ISO 12312-2). The official reference for safe viewing in Spain is the IGN (in Spanish): eclipses.ign.es.