Observation by Nick James: Eclipse plane spotting
Uploaded by
Nick James
Observer
Nick James
Observed
2026 Aug 12 - 18:30
Uploaded
2026 Aug 16 - 07:16
Objects
The Sun
Eclipse
Equipment
- Sony A7s iii + Megrez 72 refractor, x2 Barlow
Exposure
1/400s, ISO800, S-log3
Location
La Revilla, Spain
Target name
Sun
Title
Eclipse plane spotting
About this image
This is a single frame from my eclipse video here. Just after third contact (which was at 18:30:36 for me) an aircraft flies through the field of view. The passengers would have had a very nice view of the eclipse if they were sitting on the right hand side. Nigel Evans has potentially identified the aircraft as flight ABF9, which left Venice and did a very eclipse-related set of racetracks to the north of Leon before landing at San Sebastian but I don't think that the aircraft profile looks correct. ABF9 was an small Embreaer Praetor 600 bizjet and this looks a lot longer.
Files associated with this observation
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Miguel Araújo,
Andy Wilson,
Nigel Evans,
John Thorpe,
Martin Mobberley,
Dominic Ford,
Callum Potter,
Jim Tomney,
Martina McGovern,
Mike Foulkes,
Kwong Man
Comments
I now believe ABF9 was south of due west from Nick at the time. A more promising candidate is the Ryanair flight RK3033, a Boeing B737-800 from London to Agadir
In the end it came down to two possible aircraft. IBE1473 which was an Iberia eclipse flight out of Madrid (MAD->MAD) and EFW26CX (BA 2644) which was a BA flight from LGW to AGP (Malaga). Both were at the correct azimuth (283.1 deg) at the correct time but the Iberia flight was too low. The BA flight was at 11.28 km altitude and a distance of 84.1km which gives an elevation of 7.7 deg which is a perfect fit. The BA aircraft was a Airbus A321-231.
I wonder if any of the lucky passengers on the Gatwick to Malaga flight have posted any images taken out of the window?
I also got an image, a larger and sharper image flying through the corona at totality. I shall get the time from the camera's exif data.
Does the s log3 capture all the phases from chromosphere, BB, DR to totality and again through to C3 ?
S-log3 is a logarithmic gamma curve which helps a lot with the corona which has a very rapid fall in brightness with distance from the limb. I still needed to change the shutter speed to correctly expose the prominences.
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