Eclipse Calculator by Location – Local Eclipse Times for Your City

Eclipse calculator by location: what you will see, and when

This eclipse calculator by location works out the local circumstances of every solar and lunar eclipse from 2024 to 2040 for the place you choose: when the eclipse begins, when it peaks and when it ends on your clock, how much of the Sun is hidden, how long totality or the ring of fire lasts, and how high the Sun or Moon stands at each moment. Pick a city, use your location or type coordinates, then choose an eclipse — or press Next eclipse visible here.

The answers come from the same data NASA uses: the Besselian elements of Fred Espenak and Jean Meeus’ Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses, reduced for your latitude and longitude in your browser. For the eclipse of 8 April 2024 the calculated times match NASA’s published times for Dallas, Cleveland and Buffalo to the minute, and every contact agrees with NASA’s own Solar Eclipse Explorer to about a second. The list under the diagram shows every eclipse your town can see, so “lunar eclipse 2026 visible in India” or “when is the next solar eclipse here” takes one click.

How to use the Eclipse Calculator by Location

1. Choose a City, or enter Latitude and Longitude (or press Use my location), and check the Time zone used for the clock times.
2. Pick an Eclipse from the list (grouped by year), or press Next eclipse visible here.
3. Read the panel: what kind of eclipse you get at this spot, its maximum time, the magnitude, how much of the Sun is covered and the Sun’s altitude.
4. Check the contact table for the start, maximum and end in local time and UTC, with the altitude and compass direction of the Sun or Moon; rows below the horizon are greyed.
5. Scroll to Eclipses visible from this place and press Show on any row to load it.

Eclipse Calculator by Location features

How the local times are calculated

For every solar eclipse NASA publishes Besselian elements: polynomials giving the position of the Moon’s shadow axis on a plane through Earth’s centre, the radii of the penumbral and umbral shadow cones and the Sun’s declination and hour angle. The calculator places you on that plane (allowing for Earth’s flattening), then iterates to the moment the shadow axis is closest to you — the maximum — and to the moments the edge of the penumbra or umbra passes you, the contacts. This is the method of the Explanatory Supplement to the Astronomical Ephemeris and of Jean Meeus’ Elements of Solar Eclipses.

Times use the canon’s value of ΔT, the difference between Earth’s irregular rotation and uniform time (74–85 s over these years). The real ΔT is about 69 s, so actual events may come a few seconds earlier; the Moon’s mountainous limb also moves second and third contact by a few seconds. Treat the seconds as close, not exact. For lunar eclipses the contacts are the same instant everywhere; only whether the Moon is above your horizon changes.

Checked against NASA

Watching safely

• Use ISO 12312-2 eclipse glasses or a solar filter over the front of binoculars, cameras and telescopes for every partial and annular phase. Sunglasses are not safe.
• Only during totality — between C2 and C3 of a total eclipse — may you look without a filter; put the glasses back on as soon as the Sun reappears.
• Lunar eclipses are safe to watch with the naked eye. Low eclipses need a clear horizon: the direction column tells you where to look, and the sun position calculator or moonrise and moonset calculator shows the rest of the day.