Mark Griffiths drove from Cheshire to Galicia for solar eclipse dua on Wednesday, spending two days on the road to photograph a total solar eclipse. He stopped in France to take pictures and arrived with two high-spec cameras, a specialist telescope and a drone.
He said the trip was his first total solar eclipse, adding, "I'm quite sleep deprived." The journey put him in position for an event that will leave mainland Europe in darkness for only a couple of minutes.
France and Galicia
Griffiths spent six years building his sky-watching habit after going to Shetland to see the northern lights. Over time, he began photographing auroras, eclipses and bioluminescence, and he now goes to Iceland once a month and leads tour groups there.
His route from Cheshire through France to Galicia fits the narrow window eclipse chasers are trying to catch. The total phase is short enough that observers have to choose their viewing point carefully, then be ready the moment the moon moves across the sun.
Europe and the Mediterranean
Wednesday's eclipse is the first total solar eclipse in mainland Europe for more than 25 years. The path starts at the tip of Siberia and crosses parts of Greenland and Iceland, then a stretch of the northern Atlantic Ocean before reaching northern Spain and ending in the Mediterranean.
Other parts of Europe will see a partial eclipse instead. For travellers such as Samantha Phillips-Brown and Gregory Phillips-Brown, who flew from upstate New York to Iceland and hired a camper van there, the practical task is the same as Griffiths's: get into the right place before the brief total phase passes.
Mark Griffiths and Samantha and Gregory
Griffiths said, "I kept wanting more," and, "I'll be honest, it's like an addiction now," describing why he keeps returning to sky events. He has already photographed various auroras, eclipses and bioluminescence, but this trip to Galicia puts him inside a rarer moment than most of those outings.
The immediate question for eclipse chasers is simple: whether Galicia delivers the clearest view as the moon's shadow sweeps across northern Spain and on toward the Mediterranean. For Griffiths, the road from Cheshire has already done its job; the remaining work is a few minutes of timing, framing and weather watching.
