Enter any location on Earth to see every upcoming solar eclipse geometrically visible there during daylight hours over the next 15 years — not just whether a total eclipse crosses your country, but the actual percentage of the Sun's disc obscured from your exact coordinates, the Sun's altitude and direction at maximum eclipse, and local start/peak/end times. If totality never reaches your exact spot, we'll also find the nearest place that gets one. Free, no account required.
“Visible” here means the Sun is mathematically above the horizon at maximum eclipse — it doesn't account for local terrain, buildings, or cloud cover blocking your specific view.
By Robert Bridgewater · Last updated
This calendar tells you when and where to be. It can't protect your eyes or your sensor for you — get this part wrong and you risk permanent eye damage or a ruined camera, not just a bad photo.
A proper solar filter (or stacked ND filters strong enough for direct-sun photography) stays on the front of the lens at all times — and never look at the sun through an unfiltered viewfinder or optical finder, even briefly. This applies for the entire partial eclipse, both before and after totality.
If you're in the path of totality (see the “Totality” or “Annular” rating above), the filter comes off only during full totality itself — that's the one moment it's safe to view and shoot the sun directly, and also the only moment you can capture the corona. Filter goes back on the instant totality ends. Outside of true totality (including 99% partial), the filter stays on.
One photographer shooting the 12 August 2026 partial eclipse with a 70-200mm f/2.8 on a Canon R5, two stacked 10-stop ND filters plus a variable ND in front of the lens, used f/6.3, 1/50s, ISO 100 — a filtered sun is still extremely bright, so expect settings close to a normal sunny-day exposure once enough ND is stacked on. Treat this as one working data point, not a fixed recipe — your filter strength, lens, and the eclipse's exact obscuration at the moment will all shift it.
The moment totality begins, the corona is far fainter than the filtered partial phases and spans a huge dynamic range from the bright inner corona to the faint outer streamers — no single exposure captures all of it. Most eclipse photographers bracket a wide range of shutter speeds at a fixed aperture and ISO through the whole totality window, planning the sequence in advance since totality itself is over in minutes.
A long telephoto (400–600mm+) fills the frame with the sun's disc, but the 70-200mm range above leaves room to include the horizon — which is exactly what the Sun altitude and compass direction shown for each eclipse above are for. A low-altitude eclipse is a genuine opportunity to frame it against a landmark, a ridge, or the sea rather than shooting the disc in isolation.
Tripod and remote release or a timer — you don't want to be touching the camera during the few minutes that matter. Shoot RAW so you have room to recover the exposure later. And arrive early: partial phases run over an hour either side of totality, so there's no need to rush the setup.
The Moon's shadow has two parts: a narrow, fully-dark umbra where totality happens, wrapped in a much wider, partly-dark penumbra where you get a partial eclipse instead. Whether a given spot on Earth sees 100% or 40% obscuration comes down to which of these two regions it falls in — and by how much.
These three moments only happen if you're standing in the umbra — a 99% partial eclipse never produces any of them.
Most eclipse calendars only tell you whether a total solar eclipse crosses your country that year. But totality only ever touches a narrow path a few hundred kilometres wide — most photographers checking a calendar are nowhere near it. What actually matters for your exact location is the local percentage of the Sun obscured at maximum: a 94% partial eclipse is a genuinely exceptional photographic event even though it never reaches totality, while a country hosting a “total” eclipse might still leave most of its own population seeing only a modest partial. This calendar calculates that percentage — along with the Sun's altitude and compass direction at maximum eclipse, useful for planning a composition against a foreground landmark — for your exact coordinates, not just the country you're in.
Knowing an eclipse is coming is only half the problem — cloud cover on the day decides whether you actually see it. A percentage and a date don't tell you whether it's worth planning a trip, or whether conditions at your own backyard location are about to turn.
Totality is a travel decision
If the path of totality passes a few hundred kilometres from you, the difference between a 94% partial and a 3-minute totality is worth planning around — but that needs distance, duration, and weather-along-the-route data this free calculator doesn't include.
Cloud cover on the day
A rare event with a clear obscuration percentage is still worthless behind cloud. Forecast accuracy only becomes reliable in the days immediately before.
Foreground composition
Sun altitude and direction at maximum eclipse change every event and every location — worth checking against your specific composition (a ridge, a pier, a landmark) well before the day, not just the morning of.
ShotScout's alerts are built to track exactly this kind of time-sensitive opportunity for your saved locations, continuously, not just when you remember to check.
ShotScout's condition alerts are launching soon — join the early-access list to get them for your saved locations first.