The 2026 total solar eclipse may have passed but, thanks to NASA photographers updating the space agency’s eclipse gallery with some of their shots from yesterday, we can relive the solar experience with some stunning shots.
While a host of photographers at the agency have shared their frames, for me, the standouts were taken by Bill Ingalls, senior photographer for NASA Headquarters, and Joel Kowsky, who also shoots for the headquarters.
Unfortunately NASA has stripped these frames of EXIF data, so we can’t see what camera and settings were used, but we can still marvel at the fantastic shots themselves.
Ingalls captured this first piece which, for me, is the pick of the bunch, near San Millán de los Caballeros – a tiny hamlet in the northern Spanish countryside.
Unlike other parts of Europe, such as the UK and France, which experienced a tantalizingly near-total eclipse, Spain experienced the full shebang – the first time in over a century.
While the different stages of the eclipse are rendered brilliantly in this composite image, it’s the sunflowers in the foreground that make it a standout in my view.
Very often, we see eclipse photos where the eclipsed Sun fills the frame. But here Ingalls took a more creative approach, incorporating landscape photography, creating an overall beautiful scene.
At first glance this next shot, from Joel Kowsky, doesn’t strike you like Ingalls’ does. However, that speck in the middle of the Sun? That’s the International Space Station (ISS).
NASA calls the ISS passing directly between the Earth and the Sun a solar transit. The event happens in a fraction of a second – usually between 0.5 and 1 second – as the station travels at roughly 5 miles / 7.5 kilometers per second.
Kowsky shot the image near Hodgdon, Maine in the northeastern US, timing the click of the shutter impeccably, to which I doff my hat. I’d love to know what shutter speed he used…
My final pick from NASA’s eclipse photos is another from Bill Ingalls. This frame is much more like the eclipse compositions you typically see, but look closer and the details reveal themselves.
Practically the whole way around the edge of the silhouetted Moon, you can see solar flares shooting out from the Sun’s corona into the vast blackness of space, culminating in a huge flare on the left-hand side.
For me, these little details transform what would otherwise be a pretty standard eclipse photo into a really spectacular one. It goes to show that Ingalls knows how to make the most of what’s in front of his lens.
These are some great shots from Ingalls and Kowsky, and I can’t wait to see what NASA photographers will share with us after the next total eclipse on August 02 2027. There will be an extraordinary 6 minutes and 22 seconds of totality, which is already being described as the “eclipse of the century”.
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