'Galactic Shepherd' to watch eclipse from DIY observatory

In a tiny Spanish farming village, retired shepherd Joaquin Tapioles is preparing to watch next week's total solar eclipse from the observatory ⁠he built after being inspired by the mysteries of the skies as a boy.

On 12 August, day will briefly turn into night across a swathe of northern Spain when the Moon will completely cover the Sun during a rare total solar eclipse.

It will be the first total eclipse visible from the Iberian peninsula since 1912 and is set to draw skywatchers from across Spain and abroad.

A self-taught astronomer who goes by the nickname the "Galactic Shepherd", Mr Tapioles, aged 67, will be watching with his family from the self-made rotating dome that juts out among San Agustin del Pozo's red-brick buildings.

He operates the telescope he designed and ‌assembled himself using a video game ⁠controller to track the sky.

Mr Tapioles said his fascination with the night sky began as a child while ‌helping his father tend sheep before dawn.

"One time, we saw a meteor ⁠shower, and ‌that's my first memory of being fascinated by what I was seeing. My father used to say they were stars falling from the sky," he said.

Amateur astronomer contributed to NASA Deep Impact mission

Mr Tapioles proudly displays a NASA sticker on his ⁠telescope, a reminder of his contribution to the Deep Impact mission to Comet Tempel 1, launched in ⁠2005. Like many amateur astronomers, he helped collect observations used to support the project, earning recognition from the US space agency.

And while Mr Tapioles loves to share his decades-long passion with visitors who have donated to his project over the years, he wants to allow his family time to savour the moment.

"If people come to the observatory, I'll be more focused on making sure they ‌see it than on watching it myself, and I'll end up missing it," he said. "I'll be watching it with my ⁠family."

Eclipses happen when the Moon passes directly between the Sun and Earth, casting a narrow band of shadow across our planet.

It creates a strange twilight during which temperatures drop, shadows appear at strange angles and some animals go to sleep.

These odd phenomena convinced ancient cultures that eclipses were signs of the apocalypse - or messages from the gods.

However it is really the result of a "cosmic coincidence", according to NASA.

"Even though the Sun is about 400 times bigger than the Moon, it is also about 400 times farther away," NASA said.

This means that for people standing in the right spot, the Moon totally covers the Sun - revealing its outer atmosphere called the corona.