Eclipses
Every eclipse for the next four years, each drawn from its own numbers — how much of the disc is covered, and the minute each stage begins and ends — and what it looks like from where you will be standing.
A lunar eclipse looks the same from everywhere the Moon is up. A solar one depends on exactly where you stand, so this page needs a place. It is kept on this device and sent nowhere.
The next one
Where they fall
After that, for four years
All times are in your own time zone, taken from this device.
Why there is not one every month
The Moon’s orbit is tilted about five degrees to the Earth’s. There is a new moon and a full moon every month, but only when one of them falls close to where the two orbits cross do the Sun, the Earth and the Moon line up closely enough for a shadow to land. That happens in two seasons a year, roughly six months apart, which is why eclipses tend to come in pairs a fortnight apart: a solar one at the new moon and a lunar one at the full moon either side of it.
The pattern repeats every eighteen years, eleven days and eight hours — the saros — which is how eclipses were predicted long before anybody could calculate an orbit. Those eight hours are why each repeat of a solar eclipse lands about a third of the way round the world from the one before.
What the drawings are
The discs are placed so that the covered share of the area is the share the calculation gives: for a solar eclipse seen from your place, how much of the Sun is behind the Moon; for a lunar eclipse, how much of the Moon is inside the Earth’s full shadow. The bite is always drawn from the same side, which is not necessarily the side you will see it from — that depends on the hour and the place. The bands underneath are the exact times each stage begins and ends.
The wheel puts each one at the degree the Moon is in at the height of it. They gather at two opposite points, where the Moon’s orbit crosses the Sun’s path, and those points slide backwards through the signs by about nineteen degrees a year. That is why the eclipses of one year fall in a different pair of signs from the eclipses of a few years later.
A partial solar eclipse has no single amount: it covers more of the Sun in some places than others, and none at all in most. Without a place to see it from there is nothing honest to draw, so nothing is.
Looking at one
A lunar eclipse is safe to watch with nothing at all. A solar eclipse is not: looking at the Sun while any part of it is uncovered damages eyes, and sunglasses are no protection. Use certified eclipse glasses, or project the Sun through a pinhole onto card. Only the minutes of totality, where there are any, are safe without them.
Eclipses have been read as omens for as long as there are records of them. Nothing on this page says what one means for anybody. It says when the shadow falls, and where.
Questions people ask
When is the next eclipse?
The card under The next one shows it, whichever kind it is, with its date and the minute it reaches its height, worked out on your device when the page opens. Choose the place you plan to watch from and the card adds what it looks like there: how high the Moon stands for a lunar eclipse, or how much of the Sun is covered for a solar one, if any. The list below carries on with every eclipse for the following four years, all in your own time zone.
What is the difference between a solar and a lunar eclipse?
A solar eclipse happens at a new moon, when the Moon passes in front of the Sun and its shadow falls on part of the Earth. It is seen only where that shadow reaches, and as total or annular only along a narrow track. A lunar eclipse happens at a full moon, when the Moon passes into the Earth’s shadow, and it can be seen from the whole of the night side of the planet at once. Both need the Moon to be close to one of its nodes at the time.
How often do eclipses happen?
Every calendar year has at least four eclipses and at most seven, counting both kinds. They come in two eclipse seasons about six months apart, when the Sun is near the points where the Moon’s orbit crosses its path. Those points drift backwards round the zodiac, so the seasons arrive nearly three weeks earlier each year. Any one place sees far fewer: a total solar eclipse comes back to the same spot only once every few centuries on average.
What does an eclipse mean in astrology?
Astrology has long read eclipses as markers of change, and many astrologers look at the sign and degree where one falls and at any planet in a birth chart close to it. That is a tradition of interpretation rather than a measured effect, and an eclipse is not a warning. The wheel on this page places each eclipse at the Moon’s degree at its height, so you can see which signs the coming ones fall in; what anyone makes of that is theirs to decide.