Hundreds look to the skies as Dundee witnesses a spectacular once in a generation solar eclipse

For a couple of hours on an August evening, hundreds of people in Dundee had their eyes fixed on the sky.

The city witnessed a spectacular partial solar eclipse on Wednesday, August 12, as the Moon moved across the face of the Sun and covered around 91% of it at the height of the event.

Hundreds gathered in the grounds of Broughty Castle for a special viewing event organised by Mills Observatory, while people across Dundee found their own spots to watch one of the most significant solar eclipses visible from the city in decades.

Clouds threatened to spoil parts of the show, occasionally drifting across the Sun at precisely the wrong moment.

But the skies opened enough for Dundee’s skywatchers to see and photograph the eclipse as it progressed.

Images shared with Dundee Culture captured the Sun gradually being transformed into a brilliant crescent as the Moon covered more and more of its surface.

For those who witnessed it, it was a sight worth remembering.

Dundee turns out for the eclipse

Crowds turned out at Broughty Castle for the eclipse (Picture: Lens38)

Broughty Castle became the focal point for eclipse watching in the city, with hundreds turning out for the evening event.

There was something particularly special about seeing so many people gathering for astronomy.

Families, photographers, curious passers-by and seasoned skywatchers all had the same reason for looking upwards as the eclipse unfolded above the River Tay.

The event was organised by Mills Observatory but moved away from its usual home on Balgay Hill because of the position of the Sun.

With the eclipse taking place during the evening and the Sun sitting increasingly low in the sky, the observatory was not ideally positioned to provide the best view.

Broughty Castle was chosen as the host venue due to the ideal location of the Sun (Picture: Lens38)

Broughty Castle offered an alternative location with a much more suitable outlook for the spectacle.

The turnout was also a huge boost for Mills Observatory as the historic Dundee attraction prepares to enter its 91st observing season at the beginning of October.

For an observatory approaching a century of introducing Dundonians to the night sky, seeing hundreds of people come together for a celestial event demonstrated that Dundee’s fascination with astronomy remains very much alive.

Capturing Dundee’s eclipse

Dundee Culture was fortunate to have eyes on the ground throughout the event.

Lens38, run by Dundee photographer Callum Christie, covered the Broughty Castle gathering for Dundee Culture while I travelled with my family to Menorca to experience the same eclipse from inside the path of totality.

The solar eclipse visible from Dundee (Picture: Drew Kerr)

While Dundee saw around 91% of the Sun disappear, Menorca experienced the extraordinary moment when the Moon completely covered the Sun and day briefly turned to darkness.

Back home, Callum captured the atmosphere surrounding the Dundee event as hundreds waited to catch glimpses of the increasingly narrow solar crescent between the clouds.

More photographs from Lens38’s coverage of the event will be shared by Dundee Culture soon.

We have also received some fantastic photographs from people across the city who pointed their cameras skywards, showing just how dramatic the eclipse became even without reaching totality.

An eclipse Dundee won’t see again for generations

The total solar eclipse captured by me in Cala Blanca in Menorca. Dundee won’t have this type of eclipse until 2135

What made August 12 particularly special was its rarity.

Dundee will experience other partial solar eclipses in the coming decades, but another eclipse on this scale will not be visible from the city until 2081.

For many of those gathered at Broughty Castle, that means this could have been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see more than 90% of the Sun obscured from their home city.

A total solar eclipse is rarer still.

Dundee will have to wait until October 7, 2135 for the next total solar eclipse to pass over the city.

That is more than a century away.

Generations will come and go before people can stand in Dundee and experience what those in the path of totality witnessed this August.

It makes photographs from events like this more than simply impressive images of the sky. They become a record of a particular moment in Dundee’s history.

Dundee looked up

Perhaps one of the nicest parts of the eclipse was not simply what happened above Dundee, but what happened on the ground.

Hundreds of people made the effort to come together at Broughty Castle and watch something happening around 93 million miles away.

There were clouds. There was plenty of waiting. There were probably a few nervous glances upwards wondering whether Dundee’s weather was going to have the final say.

But when the clouds moved and that brilliant crescent Sun appeared, people got the spectacle they had come to see.

And for Mills Observatory, the turnout could hardly have been a better way to build towards its 91st season.

Dundee has had a relationship with astronomy for generations, and on August 12, 2026, hundreds of people helped continue it.

The next eclipse will come.

But Dundee may be waiting a very long time to experience another quite like this one.