Solar eclipse map: Where and when to see the next eclipses

What the map shows

A solar eclipse happens when the Moon passes between the Sun and Earth and its shadow falls on part of our planet. The colored band is the path of the central eclipse: inside it the Moon covers the Sun completely (a total eclipse) or sits inside the Sun’s disk and leaves a ring of sunlight around it (an annular eclipse, often called the ring of fire). The shading around the band is where the eclipse is seen as partial, with only part of the Sun covered; the deeper the color, the more of the Sun disappears. Places outside the shading see no eclipse at all.

Choose your city, or tap any point of the map, and the panel at the top gives the moments for that place: when the partial eclipse begins, when totality or the ring begins and ends, the greatest moment with the share of the Sun covered, and when it all ends, with the height of the Sun each time. The picture beside it shows the Sun and the Moon as they will look from there; move the slider under it through the eclipse. If your place is outside the central path, the panel says how far away the path passes.

Total, annular, hybrid and partial

The Moon’s distance from Earth changes along its orbit, and so does its size in our sky. When it looks a little bigger than the Sun, its darkest shadow, the umbra, reaches the ground and the eclipse is total along a narrow path. When it looks a little smaller, the umbra ends before it reaches Earth: the eclipse is annular, and the Sun is never completely covered. A hybrid eclipse is total along part of its path and annular along the rest, because Earth’s curved surface brings the middle of the path closer to the Moon. Every one of these is seen as a partial eclipse over a much wider area around the path.

Watching safely

NASA’s advice is plain: never look straight at the Sun without proper eye protection,. Ordinary sunglasses are not enough; use eclipse glasses or a handheld solar viewer that meets the international standard ISO 12312-2, and never look at the Sun through a camera, binoculars or a telescope without a certified solar filter on the front. The only time you can take your glasses off is during totality itself, when the Moon covers the Sun completely; put them back on as soon as the Sun starts to reappear. During an annular or a partial eclipse the Sun is never fully covered, so the glasses stay on all the time.

How accurate the map and the times are

The positions of the Sun and the Moon come from Astronomy Engine, an open source library tested against NASA JPL’s Horizons system. The paths use the same constants as NASA’s eclipse tables: the Moon’s radius, the Sun’s radius and the difference between Earth’s rotation time and atomic time. For each central eclipse we compared the result with every point of NASA’s published path table, prepared by Fred Espenak at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center: the edges of the paths agree within 1 kilometer and the duration of totality within a second.

The exact edge of a path also depends on the mountains and valleys along the Moon’s edge, which NASA’s tables and this map treat as smooth, and on the weather on the day. If you plan to travel, aim for a place well inside the path rather than a few kilometers from its edge: totality is longest along the center line and shortest near the edges.

Common questions