August 12, 2026 Total Solar Eclipse in Mallorca
Will you see it? Will you not? There’s a lot of talk about visibility of TSE2026 in different parts of Mallorca. Officials say to head to the northwest coast.
There’s been discussion aplenty in some of the Facebook Solar Eclipse groups recently about the visibility of the August 12, 2026 eclipse on Mallorca in the the Balearic Islands.
It will be a near-sunset eclipse there, meaning that sightlines are critical. Locations on the northwest coast with clear views over the ocean will be fine; for example, Banyalbufar:
But what about farther south and east on the island, for example, Can Pastilla near the airport? There are mountains to the northwest. A strict sightline analysis using TPE at the time of Third Contact (C3 – the end of totality) suggests you’d be just OK:
Using Shadow Maps
Eclipse-chasers have been using shadow maps to assess visibility. The notional shadow of the uneclipsed Sun is used as a visual proxy for whether it will be visible or not. The nice thing about the approach is that you can assess multiple potential viewpoints at a glance by seeing where the shadow falls.
Of course, on the day of the eclipse, there will be a very different shadow during totality – that of the Moon! But that doesn’t preclude assessing a normal shadow map for potential spots.
Some gotchas
The discussion on Facebook got me thinking: there are a few issues that a standard shadow map may not account for:
- Penumbra: you’re not in complete shadow until the upper limb (12 o’clock on the Sun’s disk) has dropped behind the ridgeline – but wouldn’t you be disappointed to see the eclipsed Sun slipping away before totality ends?
- Corona: during totality, you’re not just looking at the black disk of the Moon. You’re looking around the Sun at Baily’s beads, the chromosphere, and perhaps most importantly of all, the corona. The corona extends a long way out from the Sun. With specialist imaging equipment, you can capture it at distances up to ~10× the Sun’s radius. Regular observers can reasonably expect to see it up to 3–4× the Sun’s radius away. That means you need the Sun to be higher than you think in order to see the full splendor of totality.
Other issues with a low altitude relate to clouds (there’s a higher chance they can block when the Sun is low), and haze and atmospheric turbulence, which can impede visibility. A shadow map cannot account for those.
A Totality-Aware Shadow Map
The interactive map shown below accounts for the penumbra AND the corona. It assumes you can see the corona up to 4× the Sun’s radius away.
- Regular shadows are dark gray
- Penumbral shadow is highlighted in blue
- The notional coronal shadow is shown in turquoise: if you observe from the coronal shadow during totality, you’ll be watching the corona sink behind the mountains during the eclipse!
Try changing the Shadow Style in the control panel:
- Standard shadows are the umbral and penumbral shadows combined using the standard dark grey color
- Point shadows render as if the Sun were a point light source with no penumbra at all. You may have seen this simpler style in other shadow maps.
- Penumbral renders the penumbral shadows in a brighter blue so you can distinguish them visually and understand the effect
- Coronal renders the notional coronal shadow in addition, as discussed above
You’ll notice that both penumbral and coronal shadows extend significantly farther than just “ point ” shadows!
One other gotcha to note: on other shadow maps, be careful with the map zoom level. Sometimes, as you zoom in, shadows that were previously there start to disappear. That can be very misleading if you’re unaware of it. The map above avoids this issue.
We’re working on integrating these new maps into TPE directly, but for now, for TSE2026, you can try the example above for free. Let us know what you think!
