On Wednesday 12 August 2026, something happens in the sky twice in one evening. Just before sunset the moon slides in front of the sun, and if you photograph the solar eclipse you will see a large part of the sunlight disappear over a little more than an hour: the first eclipse visible from the Netherlands since March 2025. A few hours later, once it is finally dark, the Perseid meteor shower reaches its peak. The two coinciding is no coincidence. A solar eclipse can only happen at new moon, and that same new moon means there is no moonlight to wash out the fainter meteors that night. For photographers that is a rare evening, provided you know where to stand, when, and what protection your eyes and your camera need.
Solar eclipse 12 August: times and sequence
The eclipse starts around 19:15, the moment the moon first takes a bite out of the sun. Astronomers call that moment first contact. Maximum lands around 20:11, with roughly 87 to 90 percent of the sun covered, depending on where in the Netherlands you are. After that the moon moves away again, and by 21:03 the eclipse is over. For a quick look:
- Start: around 19:15
- Maximum: around 20:11, 87 to 90 percent coverage
- End: around 21:03
Because the sun sets around 21:10 that evening, the whole event plays out low over the western horizon. Find a spot with a clear view west, not somewhere with trees or buildings in the way. A few hours later, once the sky has properly darkened, attention shifts upward. The Perseids are then at their strongest, and because it is close to new moon, no moonlight drowns out the fainter meteors. That combination, a well-placed eclipse followed by an exceptionally dark meteor night, is what makes this evening special for photographers.
Coverage and times per city
Coverage and timing shift by a few minutes and a percent or two depending on where you are in the Netherlands. The sun and moon planner on the map has a table with start, maximum, end and coverage percentage for five reference cities: Den Helder, Groningen, Utrecht, Middelburg and Maastricht. The further south you stand, the slightly higher the coverage, just under 89 percent in Maastricht, just under 87 in Groningen. Drop your own location on the map and click the button to view the eclipse moment. You immediately see the sun's altitude and direction from your own spot, not from one of the five example cities. That saves you the guesswork if you are standing in, say, Nijmegen, Eindhoven or Leeuwarden, the map calculates it for you instead of you estimating between two reference cities. The planner also shows the direction as a compass point, handy if you want to know in advance whether a building or a row of trees blocks the view. You do not need an account, the map and the table are free to use.
Solar filter required if you photograph the eclipse
Never look at the sun with the naked eye, even when it is mostly covered. Even at 90 percent coverage the remaining sunlight damages your retina, and you will not feel it happening. For your eyes, use certified eclipse glasses with the ISO 12312-2 mark. Ordinary sunglasses, smoked glass or exposed film negative do not protect enough. Your camera needs the same principle, but with a dedicated solar filter for optics, not a regular ND filter. Even the heaviest ND in a standard set, an ND6400, only blocks a little over 12 stops and does not filter ultraviolet or infrared, nowhere near enough for the sun and no protection for your sensor either. A real solar filter is a different category: a specially coated glass or film filter with an optical density of OD 5.0, good for over 16 stops of light reduction, exactly the same density as eclipse glasses. Affordable options are Baader AstroSolar film in a home-made or ready-made holder, or a ready-made glass solar filter from a telescope or camera shop sized for your lens hood. Fit it tightly and wind-proof on the front of your lens: a filter that comes loose or shifts while you shoot is no filter at all. That density dims the light so much that both your eyes and your sensor can be safely exposed to the sun. Important difference from a total eclipse: this one never gets fully dark, so there is no moment where you can safely take the filter off. Keep it on from first contact until the sun is fully clear again, between shots too.
Photograph the solar eclipse: which settings?
The recipe in steps:
- Put a solar filter on your lens, always, before you point the camera at the sun.
- Use a telephoto lens, 200mm or longer, otherwise the sun stays a small dot in a large frame. On a crop sensor (APS-C, 1.5x factor) a shorter lens already gives the same effect.
- Put your camera on a tripod, the sun sits low and shifts noticeably while you focus. Turn off image stabilisation on the lens or camera, it works against you once the camera is locked down.
- Focus manually on infinity, autofocus often struggles with the low-contrast image a filter produces.
- Shoot RAW and fire off a series around maximum, so you can pick the frame with the nicest bite out of the sun afterwards.
Focusing works best through live view: zoom in ten times on the edge of the sun and focus manually there, then tape the focus ring in place so it does not drift while you shoot. If you also want a recognisable silhouette in the frame, a person, a tree, a building, step further back rather than moving closer. A figure of 1.8m looks roughly the same size as the sun from about 195 metres away, the further back you go, the smaller the silhouette becomes relative to the sun.
The solar filter already dims the light so much that you can shoot at a low ISO and a mid-range aperture. Check the exposure on your screen and adjust the shutter speed from there, rather than trusting a fixed value. Because the shape of the sun slowly changes during the eclipse, it is worth taking a fresh test shot every few minutes. If you also want to follow the event with binoculars between shots, fit those with a solar filter too, or keep your eclipse glasses on.
After the eclipse: the Perseids in the dark
Once the sun is gone and the sky has darkened, everything shifts to photographing meteors. Open your lens as wide as it goes, f/2.8 or wider, with a shutter speed between 15 and 25 seconds so stars stay as points. Start at ISO 3200 and adjust from what your screen shows. The meteors appear to radiate from the constellation Perseus, towards the northeast. Perseus climbs higher in the sky after midnight, so the second half of the night usually delivers more meteors than the first. A wide frame catches them anywhere in the sky, not just around the constellation itself. More important than the settings is the location: the darker, the more you see. The photo locations tool lists spots with little light pollution nearby. Give your eyes about twenty minutes to adjust to the dark before you really start seeing what streaks past. Bring patience. Most frames show nothing, a handful of hits make the evening worthwhile.
Plan the evening in advance
Open the sun and moon planner a day ahead. Drop your location on the map and check the eclipse moment and the Perseid night with the two buttons above the map. Each button jumps straight to the right time, so you see the sun's altitude and the moon's illumination for your own spot without doing the maths yourself. Add both moments to your calendar in one click via the ics button, including a reminder beforehand so you do not forget to head out on time. Jot your own times down separately or snap a photo of them, so you do not need to reach for your phone once you are there. The tool is free, you do not need an account. Combine that with the table earlier in this article: the national overview for the big picture, the map for your own exact numbers. That way you are not figuring things out in the moment, you already know the evening before exactly where to stand and at what time.
An evening where a solar eclipse and a meteor shower peak line up does not come around often. So get ready: solar filter and eclipse glasses in your bag, tripod with you, and a spot with a clear view west and, later in the evening, a dark sky. Look up your city in the table, and you will know what is coming before you even leave the house: when the eclipse peaks, how dark it gets for the Perseids, and where to stand to photograph both. Curious when the next notable celestial event is? Check the celestial events calendar.
Curious how to photograph a total solar eclipse, like the one visible the same day from Greenland, Iceland and northern Spain? Landscape photographer Albert Dros wrote a detailed guide, covering the corona, the diamond ring, and the gear you need once the sun disappears completely.