Eclipse August 12, 2026 · Granada, Spain
Will mountains block your eclipse view from Sierra Nevada?
Mainland Spain's highest range — Mulhacén at 3,479 m. The southern Alpujarras region offers high-altitude vantage points but western slopes will lose the sun behind the ridge before the partial phase ends.
The August 12, 2026 total solar eclipse over Sierra Nevada happens at very low sun altitude — under 10° in many places. At that altitude, even modest hills or ridges in your western horizon can block the sun completely. This guide covers the high-impact vantage points in Sierra Nevada and links each to a 3D simulation that uses real Mapbox elevation data + 360° ray-casting to reveal the actual terrain horizon from that exact spot.
Key viewpoints
Pradollano
37.092°N, -3.392°W
Mulhacén (peak)
37.054°N, -3.311°W
Trevélez
36.996°N, -3.262°W
Capileira
36.962°N, -3.358°W
Drop a pin anywhere — Heliora computes the terrain horizon from that exact point and shows whether the eclipsed sun is visible above it.
Why does terrain matter so much?
- How low will the sun be during the eclipse?
- Across most of Spain the sun will be between 4° and 12° above the horizon at maximum eclipse. At 4°, a 100 m ridge half a kilometre away blocks the sun. At 8°, the same ridge needs to be 1.4 km away to clear it.
- How does Heliora know the actual horizon from my spot?
- Heliora downloads Mapbox Terrain-RGB elevation tiles around your pin and ray-casts 360° outward, sampling elevation every degree of azimuth and computing the apparent angle of the highest point. The result is the real local horizon from your exact GPS coordinate, not the flat-earth horizon.
- Does this work for buildings too?
- Yes — toggle the "buildings" layer in the sky view. Heliora pulls Mapbox 3D building data for the closest 2 km and renders them as occluders. This is critical in cities like Bilbao, Santander, or Madrid where city blocks can hide a low sun.
- Why did you build this?
- Generic eclipse tools tell you the sun's altitude but not whether your real horizon clears it. For a low-altitude eclipse like 2026-08-12 in Spain, that distinction is the difference between seeing totality and seeing nothing at all from a mountain valley.