Eclipses 2026 and 2027
Nine eclipses fall in 2026 and 2027: four solar and five lunar. In 2026 there is an annular solar eclipse on 17 February, a total lunar eclipse on 3 March, a total solar eclipse on 12 August and a partial lunar eclipse on 28 August; in 2027, an annular solar eclipse on 6 February, a penumbral lunar eclipse on 20 February, a penumbral lunar eclipse on 18 July, a total solar eclipse on 2 August and a penumbral lunar eclipse on 17 August. Times are UTC, and each eclipse is visible only from part of the world, as NASA's catalog lists below.
2026 eclipse dates
Time of greatest eclipse in UTC, with the type, magnitude and the regions that see it from NASA's eclipse catalog.
Annular solar eclipse, 17 February 2026
The Moon is too far from Earth to hide the Sun completely, so a bright ring is left around its dark disc. The ring is visible only along a narrow path, and it is never safe to look at without a solar filter.
- Greatest eclipse
- Tue 17 Feb, 12:11 UTC
- Sun and Moon in
- Aquarius
- Magnitude
- 0.963
- Saros series
- 121
- Duration
- Totality or annularity lasts up to 2 min 20 s
- Visible from (NASA)
- Southern Argentina & Chile, Southern Africa, Antarctica
- Path of totality or ring (NASA)
- Antarctica
Traditional reading. Aquarius governs friends, communities and ideals; astrologers link a solar eclipse in the sign with new alliances and with rethinking where you belong. New moon meaning.
Total lunar eclipse, 3 March 2026
The Moon passes entirely into the Earth's dark shadow. It does not vanish: light bent through the Earth's atmosphere turns it copper or deep red, which is why a total lunar eclipse is called a blood moon.
- Greatest eclipse
- Tue 3 Mar, 11:33 UTC
- Moon in, Sun in
- Virgo, Pisces
- Umbral magnitude
- 1.151
- Saros series
- 133
- Duration
- Partial phase 3 h 27 min, total phase 0 h 58 min
- Visible from (NASA)
- Eastern Asia, Australia, Pacific, Americas
Traditional reading. Order against surrender is the old reading when the eclipsed Moon is in Virgo and the Sun in Pisces: the plan on one side, the feeling on the other. Full moon meaning.
Total solar eclipse, 12 August 2026
The Moon covers the whole Sun along a narrow strip of the Earth, usually well under 300 km wide. Inside it the day turns to twilight for a few minutes; outside it, observers see a partial eclipse.
- Greatest eclipse
- Wed 12 Aug, 17:45 UTC
- Sun and Moon in
- Leo
- Magnitude
- 1.039
- Saros series
- 126
- Duration
- Totality or annularity lasts up to 2 min 18 s
- Visible from (NASA)
- Northern North America, Western Africa, Europe
- Path of totality or ring (NASA)
- Arctic, Greenland, Iceland, Spain
Traditional reading. Leo stands for the heart, play and being seen, and astrologers read a solar eclipse here as a push toward more open creative risk and self-expression. New moon meaning.
Partial lunar eclipse, 28 August 2026
Part of the Moon enters the Earth's dark shadow and a dark bite crosses its face, while the rest stays bright. Anyone on the night side of the Earth can watch it.
- Greatest eclipse
- Fri 28 Aug, 04:12 UTC
- Moon in, Sun in
- Pisces, Virgo
- Umbral magnitude
- 0.930
- Saros series
- 138
- Duration
- Partial phase 3 h 18 min
- Visible from (NASA)
- Eastern Pacific, Americas, Europe, Africa
Traditional reading. A Pisces Moon eclipse, with the Sun in Virgo, is traditionally the culmination of dream and duty, of what cannot be measured against what must. Full moon meaning.
2027 eclipse dates
Time of greatest eclipse in UTC, with the type, magnitude and the regions that see it from NASA's eclipse catalog.
Annular solar eclipse, 6 February 2027
The Moon is too far from Earth to hide the Sun completely, so a bright ring is left around its dark disc. The ring is visible only along a narrow path, and it is never safe to look at without a solar filter.
- Greatest eclipse
- Sat 6 Feb, 15:59 UTC
- Sun and Moon in
- Aquarius
- Magnitude
- 0.928
- Saros series
- 131
- Duration
- Totality or annularity lasts up to 7 min 51 s
- Visible from (NASA)
- South America, Antarctica, Western & southern Africa
- Path of totality or ring (NASA)
- Chile, Argentina, Atlantic
Traditional reading. Aquarius governs friends, communities and ideals; astrologers link a solar eclipse in the sign with new alliances and with rethinking where you belong. New moon meaning.
Penumbral lunar eclipse, 20 February 2027
The Moon only crosses the Earth's faint outer shadow, so it dims slightly instead of showing a dark bite. Many people cannot tell it from an ordinary full moon without a camera.
- Greatest eclipse
- Sat 20 Feb, 23:12 UTC
- Moon in, Sun in
- Virgo, Pisces
- Umbral magnitude
- -0.057 (A negative umbral magnitude means the Moon stays outside the dark shadow.)
- Saros series
- 143
- Visible from (NASA)
- Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia
Traditional reading. Order against surrender is the old reading when the eclipsed Moon is in Virgo and the Sun in Pisces: the plan on one side, the feeling on the other. Many astrologers give a penumbral eclipse little weight because the Moon only dims slightly and often looks ordinary to the eye; others treat it as a full moon with an extra edge. Full moon meaning.
Penumbral lunar eclipse, 18 July 2027
The Moon only crosses the Earth's faint outer shadow, so it dims slightly instead of showing a dark bite. Many people cannot tell it from an ordinary full moon without a camera. This eclipse only grazes the faint outer shadow, so the Moon will look essentially normal: it is practically invisible without a camera and careful comparison.
- Greatest eclipse
- Sun 18 Jul, 16:03 UTC
- Moon in, Sun in
- Capricorn, Cancer
- Umbral magnitude
- -1.068 (A negative umbral magnitude means the Moon stays outside the dark shadow.)
- Saros series
- 110
- Visible from (NASA)
- Eastern Africa, Asia, Australia, Pacific
Traditional reading. The pull between ambition and belonging peaks, in the traditional reading, when the Moon is eclipsed in Capricorn and the Sun stands in Cancer on the side of home. Many astrologers give a penumbral eclipse little weight because the Moon only dims slightly and often looks ordinary to the eye; others treat it as a full moon with an extra edge. Full moon meaning.
Total solar eclipse, 2 August 2027
The Moon covers the whole Sun along a narrow strip of the Earth, usually well under 300 km wide. Inside it the day turns to twilight for a few minutes; outside it, observers see a partial eclipse.
- Greatest eclipse
- Mon 2 Aug, 10:06 UTC
- Sun and Moon in
- Leo
- Magnitude
- 1.079
- Saros series
- 136
- Duration
- Totality or annularity lasts up to 6 min 23 s
- Visible from (NASA)
- Africa, Europe, Mid East, Western & southern Asia
- Path of totality or ring (NASA)
- Morocco, Spain, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia
Traditional reading. Leo stands for the heart, play and being seen, and astrologers read a solar eclipse here as a push toward more open creative risk and self-expression. New moon meaning.
Penumbral lunar eclipse, 17 August 2027
The Moon only crosses the Earth's faint outer shadow, so it dims slightly instead of showing a dark bite. Many people cannot tell it from an ordinary full moon without a camera.
- Greatest eclipse
- Tue 17 Aug, 07:13 UTC
- Moon in, Sun in
- Aquarius, Leo
- Umbral magnitude
- -0.525 (A negative umbral magnitude means the Moon stays outside the dark shadow.)
- Saros series
- 148
- Visible from (NASA)
- Pacific, Americas
Traditional reading. Group claims against personal ones: that is how astrologers read the eclipsed Moon in Aquarius, with the Sun in Leo opposite. Many astrologers give a penumbral eclipse little weight because the Moon only dims slightly and often looks ordinary to the eye; others treat it as a full moon with an extra edge. Full moon meaning.
Eclipse seasons in 2026 and 2027
- 17 February 2026 to 3 March 2026: annular solar, total lunar.
- 12 August 2026 to 28 August 2026: total solar, partial lunar.
- 6 February 2027 to 20 February 2027: annular solar, penumbral lunar.
- 18 July 2027 to 17 August 2027: penumbral lunar, total solar, penumbral lunar.
The Moon's orbit is tilted about five degrees to the plane of the Earth's orbit, so most new and full moons pass above or below the line between Sun and Earth. The two planes cross at points called the lunar nodes, and an eclipse can only happen when a new or full moon lands near one of them.
The Sun passes a node about every half year, and for roughly a month around that passage a new moon and a full moon can both carry an eclipse. That window is an eclipse season. A year always has two, and in a few years a third squeezes in. Across a calendar year there are always at least four eclipses and never more than seven.
Each eclipse also belongs to a Saros series. After 6,585 days, a little over 18 years, the Sun, Moon and nodes return to nearly the same arrangement, and a near-twin of the eclipse follows, shifted about a third of the way around the globe. The Saros number in each entry is the series it belongs to.
Types of eclipse
Astronomers sort eclipses by how the shadow falls. A solar eclipse happens at a new moon when the Moon passes between the Earth and the Sun. A lunar eclipse happens at a full moon when the Earth passes between the Sun and the Moon. Each can be total, partial or penumbral (lunar), or total, annular or partial (solar); the six kinds are described below.
- solar total eclipse
- The Moon covers the whole Sun along a narrow strip of the Earth, usually well under 300 km wide. Inside it the day turns to twilight for a few minutes; outside it, observers see a partial eclipse.
- solar annular eclipse
- The Moon is too far from Earth to hide the Sun completely, so a bright ring is left around its dark disc. The ring is visible only along a narrow path, and it is never safe to look at without a solar filter.
- solar partial eclipse
- Only the faint outer part of the Moon's shadow, the penumbra, reaches the Earth; the dark core misses it. The Moon covers part of the Sun for people inside it, nobody sees totality, and a filter is needed for the whole event.
- lunar total eclipse
- The Moon passes entirely into the Earth's dark shadow. It does not vanish: light bent through the Earth's atmosphere turns it copper or deep red, which is why a total lunar eclipse is called a blood moon.
- lunar partial eclipse
- Part of the Moon enters the Earth's dark shadow and a dark bite crosses its face, while the rest stays bright. Anyone on the night side of the Earth can watch it.
- lunar penumbral eclipse
- The Moon only crosses the Earth's faint outer shadow, so it dims slightly instead of showing a dark bite. Many people cannot tell it from an ordinary full moon without a camera.
Blood moon
Blood moon is a popular name, not a technical one; astronomers say total lunar eclipse. The red colour comes from sunlight filtered through the rim of the Earth's atmosphere, the same effect that reddens a sunset. The total lunar eclipses in NASA's table fall on 3 March 2026, 31 December 2028, 26 June 2029 and 20 December 2029.
Eclipses in astrology
Eclipses were being recorded and predicted in Babylon long before the zodiac took its present form, and omen texts from the time treated them as messages about kings and harvests. The astrology that followed kept the idea that an eclipse is a more charged new or full moon.
Modern astrologers read an eclipse by its sign and by the house of a birth chart where it falls. Because eclipses happen at the lunar nodes, they are tied to the north and south node axis, which moves backwards through the zodiac about nineteen degrees a year, so a given pair of signs hosts eclipses for roughly a year and a half.
Traditions differ on how long an eclipse is said to matter: some say weeks, some months, and a common modern view is about six months, until the next eclipse season. Those are conventions, not measurements.
There is no scientific evidence that eclipses change the course of people's lives, health or luck. The astronomy is exact and can be checked; the meanings are an old interpretive tradition. Readings on this page are themes to reflect on, not predictions, and none of them is a reason to put off a decision or a medical visit.
Watching an eclipse safely
A lunar eclipse is safe to watch with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. A solar eclipse is not. Looking at the Sun without protection can burn the retina permanently, and that includes a partial eclipse and the ring phase of an annular one. Regular sunglasses do not protect, however dark they are. Use eclipse glasses or a viewer marked to the ISO 12312-2 standard, and take them off only during the few minutes of totality of a total solar eclipse, inside the path of totality. Never look through binoculars, a telescope or a camera while wearing eclipse glasses: the optics concentrate the light and can burn through the filter, so they need their own solar filter fixed over the front lens. You can also watch without looking at the Sun at all, by projection: let sunlight pass through a small hole in card, or through the gaps between leaves, and see the crescent shapes it throws on the ground or on a sheet of paper.
How these dates are worked out
NASA's catalog covers 2026 to 2030 here, and the times and regions above are copied from it. The moon phase engine behind the full moon and new moon pages finds the new or full moon each eclipse belongs to and the sign it falls in, and its estimate of the greatest-eclipse moment is checked against NASA's to within a few minutes. The engine cannot tell a total eclipse from a partial one, so the type is always NASA's. A new or full moon is the instant the Moon and Sun are exactly aligned in longitude. The moment of greatest eclipse is when the Moon passes closest to the centre of the shadow, and because the Moon's path is tilted it can come up to about 20 minutes before or after that alignment. So the time on a calendar and the time on an eclipse entry can differ by minutes.
Frequently asked questions
How many eclipses are there in 2026 and 2027?
The table on this page lists nine: four where the Moon crosses the Sun and five where the Earth's shadow crosses the Moon. A year always has at least four eclipses, and the busiest possible year has seven.
What is the difference between a solar and a lunar eclipse?
A solar eclipse is the Moon's shadow falling on the Earth at a new moon, and only a narrow region sees totality or the ring. A lunar eclipse is the Earth's shadow falling on the Moon at a full moon, and everyone on the night side of the planet can see it.
What is a blood moon?
It is the popular name for a total lunar eclipse, when the full moon turns copper or deep red inside the Earth's shadow. The name is informal; astronomers do not use it, and it has nothing to do with the colour of a moon on an ordinary night.
Can I see the next eclipse from where I live?
Each entry lists the regions NASA gives for it. Those are regions, not cities, and a region can see only a small part of an eclipse at sunrise or sunset. For your own town, NASA's eclipse site publishes local circumstances and maps for every eclipse in the catalog.
Is it safe to look at an eclipse?
A lunar eclipse is safe to watch without protection. A solar eclipse needs certified eclipse glasses or a filter at every phase, except the few minutes of totality inside the path of a total solar eclipse.
What does an eclipse mean in astrology?
In astrological tradition an eclipse is a new or full moon with extra weight, read by the sign it falls in and the house of a birth chart it touches. These are interpretive themes, and there is no evidence that eclipses affect events.
Where do the dates on this page come from?
The times of greatest eclipse, types and visibility regions are NASA's published catalog. The new or full moon each eclipse belongs to, the zodiac sign and the distance from the lunar node are calculated here and checked against NASA's times.
Keep going
Lunar calendar by month · Full moon dates and names · New moon dates and meaning · The eight moon phases · Planetary transits · Talk to an astrologer about your chart