Eclipse Calculator

The next eclipse you can see from where you are, to the minute, and how much of the Sun or Moon goes dark.

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The next eclipse you can see from London is a partial solar eclipse on Monday, 2 August 2027

At the peak, 10:00 am London time, the Moon covers 42% of the Sun, which stands 40° above the horizon. It assumes a clear sky and a flat, open horizon at sea level. It can't tell you the weather.

Never look at the uncovered Sun without eclipse glasses (ISO 12312-2). Even with most of it covered, what is left can burn your eyes.

Stage	Time (London time)	Sun's height
Moon starts to cover the Sun	Mon, 2 Aug 2027, 9:03 am	32°
Peak	Mon, 2 Aug 2027, 10:00 am	40°
Moon leaves the Sun	Mon, 2 Aug 2027, 10:59 am	48°

The working

How the answer is found

The search walks forward from your date through every new Moon and full Moon. At each one it checks whether the Moon is close enough to the Sun's path for a shadow to fall, then works out the Sun's or Moon's position in your sky from your latitude and longitude. Eclipses with the Sun or Moon below your horizon at the peak are skipped.

At the peak the Sun's disc is 31.5′ across and the Moon's 33.8′ (arcminutes; the Moon looks slightly bigger, so it can hide the whole Sun).
The Moon's centre is 16.4′ from the Sun's centre, as seen from London.
The overlap of two circles of those sizes, that far apart, covers 41.9% of the Sun's area, matching the 41.8% in the answer.

Worked examples

Luxor, Egypt, Monday, 2 August 2027: total eclipse, totality 6 min 25 s from 1:01 pm Luxor time, Sun 82° up, almost overhead.
London, the same morning: a partial eclipse, 42% of the Sun covered at 10:00 am London time. Same eclipse, a long way from the track of totality.
Sydney, Saturday, 22 July 2028: totality for 3 min 52 s from 1:59 pm, Sun 29° up in the winter afternoon.
Tokyo, Monday, 1 January 2029: a total lunar eclipse, the Moon red for 72 minutes around 1:51 am, 59° up.

City by city

The next eclipse you can see, in eleven cities

The same eclipse looks different from each city, and many cities miss it completely. The lunar column skips the faint penumbral ones. Times are each city's own.

City	Next solar eclipse	Sun covered	Next partial or total lunar eclipse
Sydney	Sat, 22 Jul 2028, Total	100%	Fri, 7 Jul 2028, Partial
Perth	Sat, 22 Jul 2028, Partial	50%	Fri, 7 Jul 2028, Partial
Auckland	Sat, 22 Jul 2028, Partial	68%	Fri, 7 Jul 2028, Partial
Tokyo	Sat, 1 Jun 2030, Partial	72%	Fri, 7 Jul 2028, Partial
Delhi	Mon, 2 Aug 2027, Partial	8%	Thu, 6 Jul 2028, Partial
Cairo	Mon, 2 Aug 2027, Partial	95%	Wed, 12 Jan 2028, Partial
London	Mon, 2 Aug 2027, Partial	42%	Wed, 12 Jan 2028, Partial
Madrid	Mon, 2 Aug 2027, Partial	86%	Wed, 12 Jan 2028, Partial
New York	Wed, 26 Jan 2028, Partial	3%	Tue, 11 Jan 2028, Partial
Los Angeles	Sun, 14 Jan 2029, Partial	52%	Tue, 11 Jan 2028, Partial
São Paulo	Sat, 6 Feb 2027, Partial	78%	Wed, 12 Jan 2028, Partial

Worldwide

The next 10 eclipses on Earth

Times in your own time zone. “Greatest at” is where a total or annular solar eclipse lasts longest; lunar eclipses are seen from the whole night side of Earth.

Date	Eclipse	Greatest at	Days away
Sat, 6 Feb 2027, 3:59 pm	Annular solar eclipse	31.3° S, 48.5° W	97
Sat, 20 Feb 2027, 11:12 pm	Penumbral lunar eclipse	—	111
Sun, 18 Jul 2027, 4:02 pm	Penumbral lunar eclipse	—	259
Mon, 2 Aug 2027, 10:06 am	Total solar eclipse	25.5° N, 33.2° E	273
Tue, 17 Aug 2027, 7:13 am	Penumbral lunar eclipse	—	288
Wed, 12 Jan 2028, 4:13 am	Partial lunar eclipse	—	436
Wed, 26 Jan 2028, 3:07 pm	Annular solar eclipse	3.0° N, 51.5° W	451
Thu, 6 Jul 2028, 6:19 pm	Partial lunar eclipse	—	613
Sat, 22 Jul 2028, 2:55 am	Total solar eclipse	15.6° S, 126.7° E	628
Sun, 31 Dec 2028, 4:51 pm	Total lunar eclipse	—	791

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Eclipses you can see from

London

Searched from Monday, 2 November 2026 · times in London time

Next solar eclipsePartial, Mon, 2 Aug 2027

Sun covered42%

Next lunar eclipsePenumbral, Sat, 20 Feb 2027

Stage	Time
Solar: Moon starts to cover the Sun	Mon, 2 Aug 2027, 9:03 am
Solar: peak (Sun 40° up)	10:00 am
Solar: Moon leaves the Sun	10:59 am
Lunar: Moon enters the outer shadow	Sat, 20 Feb 2027, 9:11 pm
Lunar: peak (Moon 46° up)	11:12 pm
Lunar: Moon leaves the outer shadow	1:13 am

Assumes a clear sky and an open horizon. Eclipse glasses (ISO 12312-2) for every moment the Sun is not fully covered.

calculationtime.com/calculators/eclipse-calculator/Printed Monday, 2 November 2026

Why eclipses are rare

Two gates have to open at once

Two gates have to open together.Gate one is phase: the Moon has to be new (for a solar eclipse) or full (for a lunar eclipse) - that happens every month. Gate two is geometry: the Moon also has to be near one of the two points where its tilted orbit crosses the Sun’s path, its nodes. The Moon’s orbit is tilted about 5 degrees from the ecliptic, so most new and full Moons pass a few degrees above or below the Sun-Earth line and no eclipse happens. The same 5-degree tilt is what CalculationTime’s Signature Clockface makes visible with its conjunction ring.

Good to know

A new Moon is not enough

The Sun is about 400 times wider than the Moon and about 400 times farther away, so from Earth the two look almost the same size. That coincidence is the whole reason a total eclipse can happen. Every month the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, yet most months there is no eclipse. The Moon’s path is tilted about 5° to the Sun’s, so it usually slips just above or below. An eclipse is a syzygy, the Sun, Earth and Moon in a line, made exact enough that a shadow actually lands. A conjunction is looser: two bodies sharing the same right ascension. The Signature Clockface on the right shows the Sun and Moon on one ring, so at an eclipse you see them meet.

Gate one: phase

Solar eclipses only happen at new Moon, lunar eclipses only at full Moon. That gate opens every two weeks.

Gate two: node

The Moon also has to be near a node, one of the two points where its tilted path crosses the Sun’s. Otherwise the shadow misses.

Both together, twice a year

The gates line up in two eclipse seasons a year, about 173 days apart. That is why eclipses come in pairs, a solar and a lunar about two weeks apart.

When not to trust the answer

Hills, buildings and trees can hide a low Sun or Moon. A height under 10° needs a clear view to the horizon.
The times are for sea level at the point you chose. Near the edge of a total or annular track, a few kilometres decide whether you see it at all, so use an official track map.
Totality lengths can differ by a second or two from published tables, which also allow for the Moon’s mountains and valleys.
A penumbral lunar eclipse counts as an eclipse but is often too faint to notice, so Next I can see leaves them out unless you ask for every eclipse. The Lunar tab shows them by default.

Eclipse prediction depends on repeating lunar cycles crossing the Moon's orbital nodes, but exact path, magnitude and duration require much more than phase and node timing alone.

Questions

Questions people ask about eclipses

When is the next solar eclipse?

An annular solar eclipse on Saturday 6 February 2027, greatest at 15:59 UTC over the South Atlantic. Its ring track crosses the ocean to West Africa, where Accra sees the ring for 5 minutes 25 seconds low in the evening sky. Montevideo sees a deep partial eclipse, about 86% of the Sun covered.

When is the next total solar eclipse?

Monday 2 August 2027. Totality crosses the far south of Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Tarifa gets 4 minutes 41 seconds, and Luxor, near the point of greatest eclipse, 6 minutes 25 seconds. London sees about 42% of the Sun covered and Madrid about 86%.

When is the total solar eclipse in Sydney?

Saturday 22 July 2028. The Moon starts to cover the Sun at 12:40 pm, totality begins at 1:59 pm and lasts 3 minutes 52 seconds, and the eclipse ends at 3:14 pm (Sydney time). The Sun is 29° up at the peak, in the north-western sky. Perth sees about half the Sun covered.

When is the next total lunar eclipse?

Sunday 31 December 2028, peaking at 16:51 UTC, with the Moon fully inside Earth’s shadow for 72 minutes. It is high in the sky from Asia, well placed from Western Australia and low from Sydney (3:51 am on New Year’s Day). The Americas wait until 26 June 2029.

Will I see the eclipse from where I live?

Only if the Sun (for a solar eclipse) or the Moon (for a lunar eclipse) is above your horizon at the time. Pick your city or type your latitude and longitude: the calculator skips the eclipses that happen while your sky faces the other way, and tells you how high the Sun or Moon will be. Clouds and hills it cannot know about.

Is it safe to look at a solar eclipse?

Not without protection. Use eclipse glasses made to ISO 12312-2, or project the Sun through a pinhole. Only during totality itself, when the Sun is completely covered, is it safe to look with bare eyes, and the glasses go back on the moment the first bright bead returns. A lunar eclipse is safe to watch at every stage.

Why isn’t there an eclipse every month?

The Moon’s orbit is tilted about 5° to the Sun’s path, so at most new and full Moons it passes just above or below the line. An eclipse needs the Moon at new or full phase and close to one of the two crossing points, which happens in two eclipse seasons a year.

What is a penumbral lunar eclipse?

The Moon passes only through the pale outer part of Earth’s shadow, so it dims slightly instead of losing a bite. Many people never notice one. All three lunar eclipses of 2027 are penumbral; the next partial one is on 12 January 2028. The Next I can see tab skips them unless you choose “Every eclipse, even faint ones”.

Sources

Where these times come from

For the wider observing view around an eclipse, the Observatory brings the live sky instruments and their field guides together.

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