2027 Total Solar Eclipse Planner

On Monday, August 2, 2027, the Moon’s shadow crosses southern Spain, Gibraltar, northern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia. Totality lasts up to 6 min 23 s, near Luxor (6 min 21 s in the town); in Tarifa, 4 min 38 s. From the U.S., only a sliver shows, at sunrise in Maine.

How to use it

Type a town and pick it from the list — every town of 5,000 people or more inside the path is in it, with the big cities around it — or type coordinates, or tap Use my location. The answer is total, partial or none; the times of each stage in that place’s own time zone; how high the Sun is and in which direction; and, where the shadow misses, how far away the path begins and the nearest towns that get totality.

The eclipse, and where the numbers come from

The predictions are NASA’s: the Besselian elements for this eclipse, published by Fred Espenak at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (“Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak, NASA’s GSFC”). Greatest eclipse is at 25.5° N, 33.2° E at 10:06:34 UT, with 6 min 23 s of totality and a path 257.7 km wide. From the elements the planner works out any place’s eclipse the standard way: where the place sits against the Moon’s shadow, the moment it comes closest to the shadow’s axis, and the four contacts. It was checked against NASA’s own path table: on the central line, the duration of totality is within half a second of NASA’s; at the northern and southern limits, within a kilometre of the edge.

Earth’s rotation is not perfectly regular, so the exact time difference between the clock the Moon keeps and the clock we keep (ΔT) is estimated in advance. NASA’s path table uses 71.7 seconds, the elements page 76.0; the planner uses the path table’s, so its answers and NASA’s path agree. A few seconds either way, and a shift of about a kilometre east or west, is the margin that remains.

The eclipse from 18 places

The path’s highlights and the big cities beside it: how much of the Sun is covered, how long totality lasts, the moment of maximum in local time, the Sun’s height, and the average August cloud (NASA POWER, 2001–2020).

Worked examples

Luxor. The partial eclipse begins at 11:40 a.m.; totality runs from 1:02:03 to 1:08:23 p.m., 6 min 21 s, with the Sun 82° up — almost overhead — in the south-southwest. In August Luxor’s sky averages 9% cloud, the clearest of the places above after Hurghada, which is just outside the path.

Tarifa and Tangier. Across the Strait of Gibraltar, totality begins at 10:45:06 a.m. in Tarifa and 8:44:41 a.m. in Tangier — two hours apart on the clock, 25 seconds apart in fact. Spain keeps summer time (UTC+2), and Morocco moved to permanent UTC on September 20, 2026, in the time-zone database every phone uses.

The edge of the path. Cádiz, 24 km inside the northern limit, gets 2 min 54 s; Tarifa, 83 km inside, 4 min 38 s. Málaga, 9 km inside, gets 1 min 51 s. Tripoli is covered 99.9% and misses totality: the path begins about 2 km to the north-northeast. Aswan, at 99.8%, is 14 km from it, to the northeast.

Common mistakes

• Taking 99% for totality. Hurghada (99%), Aswan (99.8%) and Tripoli (99.9%) see a thin crescent, not the corona — and a crescent is still too bright to look at. NASA: “Therefore, during partial or annular solar eclipses, it is never safe to look directly at the eclipse without proper eye protection.”
• Staying near the edge. Totality shrinks fast toward the limits: Málaga’s 1 min 51 s against Tarifa’s 4 min 38 s. The planner’s list of towns is sorted by duration; head for the middle of the path.
• Reading the times in your own time zone. Each place’s times are its own local time; Spain and Morocco are two hours apart that morning.
• Planning to see it from the U.S. In New York the eclipse is over by 5:20 a.m., before the Sun is up. Only in northern and eastern Maine does the Sun rise a few minutes before the end, with about 2% of it covered — a bite only eclipse glasses would show.
• Forgetting the weather. August cloud runs from 6% (Hurghada) and 9% (Luxor) to 36% (Jeddah) and 63% (Sanaa) in the table above.

Eye safety

NASA: “Except during the brief total phase of a total solar eclipse, when the Moon completely blocks the Sun’s bright face, it is not safe to look directly at the Sun without specialized eye protection for solar viewing.” “You can view the eclipse directly without proper eye protection only when the Moon completely obscures the Sun’s bright face – during the brief and spectacular period known as totality.” “Eclipse glasses are NOT regular sunglasses; regular sunglasses, no matter how dark, are not safe for viewing the Sun.” “Safe solar viewers are thousands of times darker and ought to comply with the ISO 12312-2 international standard.” “Do NOT look at the Sun through a camera lens, telescope, binoculars, or any other optical device while wearing eclipse glasses or using a handheld solar viewer — the concentrated solar rays will burn through the filter and cause serious eye injury.”

Plan the trip

Read whether Luxor is worth visiting, things to do in Cádiz, Málaga’s hidden gems, whether Gibraltar is worth visiting, the Morocco travel guide and things to do in Jeddah. Then the flight time, whether you need a visa and the golden hour that evening. After 2027: every solar eclipse you can see from your town, to 2035.