Eclipse predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA GSFC ✦ seriouslyscientific.com
The Eclipse Calendar
- 28 August 2026 Deep partial lunar eclipse 96.2% of the Moon in shadow. Best from the Americas; Europe and Africa catch it low, near moonset. No eye protection needed.
- 6 February 2027 Annular eclipse, the ring of fire Up to 7m 51s of ring. Best from Patagonian Argentina, where the rain shadow drops August cloud cover to about 30%.
- 2 August 2027 Total solar eclipse 6m 23s near Luxor, Egypt. The longest totality on easily accessible land until 2114, under near certain clear skies.
// The Geometry
How a solar eclipse works
The Sun is about four hundred times wider than the Moon. It is also about four hundred times further away. That coincidence, which has no deeper cause and will not last forever, means the two look almost exactly the same size in our sky. When the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun, it can cover the disc almost perfectly.
The Moon casts two shadows. The umbra is the dark inner cone where the Sun is completely hidden, and it is narrow: on 12 August it paints a track just 294 kilometres wide at its broadest. The penumbra is the much larger outer shadow where the Sun is only partly covered, and it sweeps across thousands of kilometres. Stand in the umbra and you see totality. Stand in the penumbra and you see a partial eclipse, which is a completely different experience and never safe to watch unprotected.
Not to scale. Drawn to show the relationship between the two shadows, not their true proportions: at true scale the Moon would be a speck and the Sun would not fit on the page.
There is a second condition, and it is the reason eclipses are rare. The Moon reaches this position between the Earth and the Sun once a month, at every new moon. Usually it passes a little above or a little below, because its orbit is tilted about five degrees from the plane of ours. Only when a new moon happens close to one of the two points where the orbits cross, called nodes, does the shadow actually land. That is why eclipses arrive in seasons roughly six months apart rather than monthly.
One more thing, and it is the strangest fact on this page. If you could stand at the centre of the Earth on 12 August 2026, you would not see a total eclipse at all. The Sun and Moon would still be about 0.89 degrees apart, nearly two full Moon widths, and you would see a modest partial eclipse. The live separation figure at the top of this page is that geocentric number, which is why it never quite reaches zero. Totality happens only because observers stand on the surface, up to 6,378 kilometres off the axis, and from there the Moon appears shifted against the Sun and slightly larger. That shift is called parallax, and on this particular eclipse it is the entire difference between an ordinary afternoon and two minutes of darkness.
// The Ground Track
Where the shadow falls
The umbra first touches the Earth over the Arctic coast of Russia, on the eastern Taymyr Peninsula, where totality arrives in the middle of the day. The track then runs north across the Arctic Ocean, crossing to within about 250 kilometres of the North Pole, further north than any total eclipse in modern records. From there it turns south over eastern Greenland and into western Iceland.
Iceland gets the best of it. Reykjavik, Keflavik and much of the western coastline fall inside the path, with the Sun about 25 degrees above the western horizon during totality, high enough that distant hills and haze are unlikely to spoil the view. The longest totality on Icelandic land falls at Latrabjarg, the cliffs at the western tip, which is likely to be busy. The single longest totality of the whole eclipse, 2 minutes 18.2 seconds, happens out at sea about 45 kilometres off that coast, at 65.2 degrees north, 25.2 degrees west.
The shadow then crosses the Atlantic and reaches northern Spain in the late evening, with totality around 20:30 local time and the Sun only three to ten degrees above the horizon. That makes sightlines critical: a completely unobstructed western horizon is the difference between seeing it and missing it entirely. The track clips the north-eastern tip of Portugal, crosses northern and eastern Spain, and ends over the Balearic Islands. Everywhere else in Europe, including all of the UK and Ireland, sees a partial eclipse only.
// Your Sky
When and where you can see it
Iceland stays on UTC all year, so Icelandic clock times and UTC are the same. Britain and Ireland are one hour ahead in August, Portugal one hour ahead, and mainland Spain and the Balearics two hours ahead. A totality at 18:30 UTC therefore reads 19:30 in Portugal and 20:30 in Spain.
| City | Partial begins | Totality begins | Totality ends | Partial ends |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reykjavik, Iceland UTC | 16:47 | 17:48 | 17:49 | 18:47 |
| Leon, Spain CEST | 19:32 | 20:28 | 20:30 | 21:22 |
| Zaragoza, Spain CEST | 19:34 | 20:29 | 20:30 | 21:07 * |
| Valencia, Spain CEST | 19:38 | 20:32 | 20:33 | 21:01 * |
Everywhere else sees a partial eclipse, and a partial eclipse is a different event entirely. Even at 99 per cent the sky stays daylit, the corona never appears, and it is never safe to look without protection. Madrid and Barcelona both fall just outside the track, which is a useful reminder of how narrow 294 kilometres really is.
| City | Partial begins | Maximum | Coverage | Partial ends |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Madrid, Spain | 19:36 | 20:32 | 99% | 21:16 * |
| Barcelona, Spain | 19:35 | 20:29 | 99% | 20:54 * |
| Lisbon, Portugal | 18:39 | 19:36 | 95% | 20:29 |
| Dublin, Ireland | 18:12 | 19:10 | 94% | 20:05 |
| Paris, France | 19:22 | 20:17 | 92% | 21:09 |
| London, United Kingdom | 18:17 | 19:13 | 91% | 20:06 |
| Nuuk, Greenland | 15:30 | 16:35 | 79% | 17:39 |
| Boston, United States | 13:01 | 13:55 | 16% | 14:46 |
| New York, United States | 13:07 | 13:54 | 9% | 14:38 |
London reaches 91 per cent coverage with the Sun only about ten degrees above the horizon, so treat it as a sunset observation and find an open view to the west or west-northwest. A line of distant cloud or a row of buildings will hide the whole thing even under a clear sky overhead.
How to watch safely
During every partial phase, everywhere on Earth, the Sun is exactly as bright as it is on any ordinary day. Looking at it without certified protection causes permanent damage to the retina. The damage is painless, so there is no warning sensation to stop you, and it can be irreversible.
- Use ISO 12312-2 certified solar viewers or eclipse glasses for the entire eclipse. Check the certification mark on the product itself, and discard anything scratched, punctured or damaged.
- Sunglasses are not sufficient. Not several pairs stacked, not polarised lenses, not photographic neutral density filters, not exposed film, not smoked glass, not a CD. None of these block the infrared and ultraviolet that does the harm.
- Never look through an unfiltered telescope, binoculars or camera during any partial phase, including while wearing eclipse glasses. The optics concentrate sunlight and will burn through the filter and into the eye in an instant. Solar filters must be fitted to the front of the instrument, not the eyepiece.
- Only inside the path of totality, and only during the brief moments when the Moon covers the Sun completely, is it safe to look with unprotected eyes. The instant the first sliver of the Sun's surface reappears, the glasses go straight back on.
- Everywhere outside the path of totality, protection is required for the whole event. That includes every location in the UK and Ireland, most of Europe, and all of North America. There is no moment during a partial eclipse when unprotected viewing is safe.
Safest option for a classroom
Pinhole projection needs no filters and no equipment beyond card. Punch a small hole in one piece of card, hold it up with your back to the Sun, and let the light fall on a second piece held below. You will see a small image of the eclipsed Sun, crescent-shaped, projected onto the card. Nobody looks at the Sun at any point. A kitchen colander or the gaps between interlocked fingers will produce dozens of crescents at once, and so will the dappled light under a leafy tree, which is the same effect happening by accident.
// The Day Itself
Timeline of 12 August 2026
All times below are UTC, taken from Espenak's published circumstances. These are the contacts of the shadow with the Earth as a whole, not the times at any one place. Add one hour for British Summer Time, two for mainland Spain.
-
15:34:11 UTC · P1
First contact, the penumbra arrives
The outer shadow touches the Earth for the first time. Somewhere on the planet, the Moon has just taken the first tiny bite out of the Sun's edge. From this moment, protection is required for anyone watching anywhere.
-
16:58:06 UTC · U1
The umbra touches down
The dark inner shadow reaches the Earth's surface over Arctic Russia. Totality begins somewhere in the world and starts racing along the track.
-
17:02:07 UTC · U2
The shadow settles onto the track
The umbra is fully on the Earth and running north across the Arctic Ocean, crossing to within about 250 kilometres of the North Pole.
-
17:45:54 UTC · Greatest Eclipse
Two minutes and eighteen seconds
The shadow axis passes closest to the centre of the Earth, at 65.2 degrees north, 25.2 degrees west, roughly 45 kilometres off the west coast of Iceland. Totality lasts 2 minutes 18.2 seconds and the path is 294 kilometres wide. The countdown at the top of this page is running to this exact second.
-
18:30:09 UTC · U3
Totality reaches Spain
The umbra makes landfall on the Iberian peninsula in the late evening, with the Sun close to setting. This is the first totality on mainland Europe since 11 August 1999.
-
18:34:05 UTC · U4
The umbra leaves the Earth
The dark shadow lifts off the surface for the last time, out past the Balearics. Nobody on Earth will see totality again until 6 February 2027 brings a ring of fire to Patagonia, and no total eclipse until August that year.
-
19:57:57 UTC · P4
Last contact, it is over
The penumbra leaves the Earth. Four hours and twenty-four minutes after it began, the eclipse of 12 August 2026 is finished.
// Coming Next
What comes after this one
Sixteen Days Later ✦ 28 August 2026 ↗Eclipses travel in pairs. Sixteen days after the Sun goes dark, the full Sturgeon Moon slides into the Earth's shadow for a deep partial lunar eclipse, with 96.2 per cent of the disc covered at maximum. It is best seen from the Americas, where the whole event happens with the Moon well up; Europe and Africa catch it low, near moonset. No eye protection is needed for a lunar eclipse, and none ever is. That pairing is not a coincidence: it is what an eclipse season looks like.
The Big One ✦ 2 August 2027 ↗Less than a year after this eclipse, the Moon's shadow returns to southern Spain and runs across North Africa and the Middle East. Totality reaches 6 minutes 23 seconds near Luxor in Egypt, the longest on easily accessible land since 1991 and not matched again until 2114, under skies that are almost guaranteed to be clear. If 2026 is the rehearsal, 2027 is the performance.
// Go Deeper
Follow the eclipse live
// Think It Through