The interactive eclipse map

How to read the map

The shaded band is the path of totality: the track of the Moon’s umbral shadow across the Earth’s surface. Stand inside it and the Sun disappears completely. Stand one kilometre outside it and it does not, no matter how close you feel.

• Gold shading marks how long totality lasts. The narrow bright core along the middle is where you get six minutes or more; the duller outer bands fall away towards the edges.
• The dashed turquoise line is the central line, where totality lasts longest at each moment.
• The thin gold edges are the northern and southern limits. Crossing one of them is the difference between a total eclipse and a very deep partial one.
• Gold dots are places inside the path; grey dots are places that miss it. Click either for a guide.

What the calculator actually does

When you click a town marker, the panel shows the same numbers as that town’s page. They come from our own calculation with the JPL DE440 ephemeris, explained on the sources and methodology page. When you click anywhere else, your browser evaluates the polynomial Besselian elements published by NASA/GSFC for this eclipse, for the exact coordinates you picked, with the same ΔT (69.1 s) as our dataset. It solves for the four contacts, the Sun’s altitude and azimuth, the eclipse magnitude and the fraction of the solar disc covered. Away from the path edges it agrees with our town figures to about a second. Within a few kilometres of an edge the gap can reach three or four seconds.