Total solar eclipse, August 12, 2026
In 4 days
The Moon passes exactly in front of the Sun. Greatest eclipse falls at 19:46 Central European Summer Time — 17:46 UTC. Along a narrow band the Sun disappears completely and the corona becomes visible; everywhere else a bite is taken out of it.
Read this before you look
Never look at a partial eclipse without certified eclipse glasses — ISO 12312-2, not sunglasses, not smoked glass, not an X-ray film, not a phone screen. The retina has no pain receptors: the burn happens in seconds and you feel nothing while it happens. Only inside the band of totality, and only for the seconds the Sun is entirely gone, can the glasses come off — and they must go back on the instant the first sliver returns. Through binoculars or a telescope even a moment is enough to blind. Children need an adult holding the glasses on.
The numbers
- Type
- Total
- Greatest eclipse
- 19:46 · 17:46 UTC
- Longest totality
- 2 min 18 s
- Magnitude
- 1.039
- Saros
- 126
- Path width
- 290 km
A saros is a family of eclipses that repeats every 18 years and 11 days, each one shifted a third of the way around the Earth. Knowing the number tells you which eclipses are this one's siblings.
Where the shadow falls
The band of totality crosses Greenland, Iceland, and Spain. Outside it the eclipse is partial: the Sun is bitten into but never goes out, and the sky does not darken.
Inside the band of totality
The minute the Sun disappears completely, and for how long. A few dozen kilometres decide whether you get two minutes or twenty seconds — the band is narrow, and its edge runs through towns.
| City | Local time | Totality |
|---|---|---|
| ReykjavíkReykjavik | 17:48 | 59 s |
| AvilésAviles | 20:27 | 1 min 47 s |
| GijónGijon | 20:27 | 1 min 45 s |
| Luarca | 20:27 | 1 min 50 s |
| Santander | 20:27 | 1 min 3 s |
| Oviedo | 20:27 | 1 min 48 s |
| Ferrol | 20:27 | 1 min 29 s |
| Bilbao | 20:27 | 29 s |
| A CoruñaA Coruna | 20:28 | 1 min 16 s |
| Vitoria-GasteizVitoria | 20:28 | 1 min 2 s |
| Lugo | 20:28 | 1 min 24 s |
| LogroñoLogrono | 20:28 | 1 min 21 s |
| LeónLeon | 20:28 | 1 min 45 s |
| Burgos | 20:28 | 1 min 43 s |
| Ponferrada | 20:29 | 1 min 27 s |
| Zaragoza | 20:29 | 1 min 24 s |
| Soria | 20:29 | 1 min 42 s |
| Palencia | 20:29 | 1 min 42 s |
| LleidaLerida | 20:29 | 26 s |
| Tarragona | 20:29 | 1 min 0 s |
| Valladolid | 20:30 | 1 min 28 s |
| MaóMahon | 20:30 | 1 min 10 s |
| PalmaPalma de Mallorca | 20:31 | 1 min 36 s |
| Teruel | 20:31 | 1 min 34 s |
| Segovia | 20:31 | 59 s |
| Castelló de la PlanaCastellon | 20:31 | 1 min 34 s |
| Guadalajara | 20:31 | 1 min 8 s |
| Cuenca | 20:32 | 55 s |
| ValènciaValencia | 20:32 | 1 min 0 s |
| EivissaIbiza | 20:32 | 1 min 4 s |
Outside the band
How much of the Sun's diameter the Moon covers at maximum. Even at 99% the day stays bright — the last sliver of the Sun is still hundreds of times brighter than the full Moon.
| City | Local time | Sun covered |
|---|---|---|
| BragançaBraganca | 19:32 | Total |
| LisboaLisbon | 19:32 | 98% |
| Porto | 19:32 | 98% |
| Madrid | 20:32 | 99% |
| Barcelona | 20:30 | 99% |
| Dublin | 19:10 | 94% |
| London | 19:13 | 91% |
| Edinburgh | 19:05 | 91% |
| Санкт-ПетербургSaint Petersburg | 20:55 | 85% |
| Rovaniemi | 20:43 | 84% |
| Oulu | 20:45 | 84% |
| KøbenhavnCopenhagen | 20:03 | 83% |
| Oslo | 19:56 | 83% |
| Helsinki | 20:53 | 83% |
| Stockholm | 20:00 | 81% |
| КалининградKaliningrad | 21:00 | 80% |
| ЛьвівLviv | 20:43 | 40% |
| КиївKyiv | 20:18 | 3% |
All times are local to the city, at greatest eclipse.
What the sky is doing
Eclipse at Leo, 20°
A solar eclipse is always a new moon — the Sun and the Moon stand at the same degree, which is the only way one disc can cover the other. Astrology has read eclipses as turning points for as long as records exist: not events in themselves, but the moment a story that was already running becomes visible. Traditionally the effect is read as strongest for those with planets within a few degrees of that point in their own chart.
What it touches, sign by sign
Counting from your own sign as the first house — the way astrology has read an event "for a sign" for two thousand years. Find yours and see which part of life this eclipse falls across.
AriesHouse 5
Play and creation: what you make for the joy of it, romance, children, risk taken for pleasure.
TaurusHouse 4
Home and roots: family, the place you come from, and the private self nobody sees at work.
GeminiHouse 3
Speech, thought and the near world: siblings, short journeys, everyday learning.
CancerHouse 2
What you own and what you value — money, resources, and the sense of your own worth.
LeoHouse 1
You yourself: the body, the temperament, the first impression you make before saying anything.
VirgoHouse 12
The hidden half: solitude, the unconscious, what is done offstage, and what quietly ends.
LibraHouse 11
Friends and the wider circle: groups, causes, and what you hope for beyond yourself.
ScorpioHouse 10
Your public direction: career, reputation, the role people name when they name you.
SagittariusHouse 9
The far horizon: long journeys, higher study, belief, and the search for a bigger frame.
CapricornHouse 8
What is shared and what transforms: joint money, debts, intimacy, and the endings that remake you.
AquariusHouse 7
The other: partnership, marriage, close alliances — and open opposition, which is the same axis.
PiscesHouse 6
Daily work and the body's upkeep: routine, health, service, the craft done well rather than admired.
Frequently asked questions
- Why is a total eclipse so rare in one place?
- The Moon's shadow is a spot a couple of hundred kilometres wide sweeping across a planet forty thousand kilometres around. Any given town waits an average of about 375 years between total eclipses. Spain getting two inside a year is a coincidence of orbits, not a pattern.
- Can I look with sunglasses?
- No. Sunglasses cut visible light by a few times; safe eclipse glasses cut it by about a hundred thousand times and block the infrared that does the burning. If you cannot see a bright lamp filament through them and nothing else, they are not eclipse glasses.
- What if I am not in the band of totality?
- You still see a partial eclipse — a bite out of the Sun that grows and shrinks over about two hours. It is worth watching, with glasses on the whole time. But it is a different thing from totality: the corona never appears and the sky never goes dark.
- Does an eclipse actually affect people?
- Astronomically it is a shadow, and it changes nothing physical about you. Astrology reads it as a marker rather than a cause — a date that tends to fall near turns you were already approaching. We describe what the tradition says; what you make of it is yours.