Eclipses in 2026: four dates, exact times and how much of the Sun goes dark in your city

There are four eclipses in 2026: two solar and two lunar. Below are the exact dates and times from Swiss Ephemeris, the zodiac degree for each, and a visibility calculation for ten cities. All times are UTC.

The four dates of 2026

• 17 February, 12:11 UTC: annular solar, 28°50' Aquarius
• 3 March, 11:33 UTC: total lunar, 12°52' Virgo
• 12 August, 17:45 UTC: total solar, 20°02' Leo
• 28 August, 04:12 UTC: partial lunar, 4°51' Pisces

Eclipses always come in pairs: solar at the new Moon, lunar at the full Moon, roughly two weeks apart. In 2026 there are two such pairs, February with March and the August one. Half a year of quiet sits between them, and that is the normal rhythm rather than a gap.

17 February: annular solar at 28°50' Aquarius

An annular eclipse happens when the Moon is far from Earth and appears smaller than the solar disc. It does not cover the Sun completely and leaves a bright ring around the edge. Even inside the path of maximum phase there is no full darkness.

The phases run from 09:56 to 14:27 UTC, with maximum at 12:11. The path crosses Antarctica and the southern Indian Ocean, so Europe sees nothing of it. Calculation for 70°S 90°E gives 93 percent obscuration; Cape Town gets 5 percent.

The degree 28°50' Aquarius is the last degree of the sign. Astrology reads such positions as the closing of a theme: whatever started in that sign earlier now reaches its edge. Aquarius covers communities, technology, distant connections and long-range plans.

3 March: total lunar at 12°52' Virgo

A total lunar eclipse is visible from the entire night side of the planet at once, so the geography is simpler than for a solar one. The problem here is different: maximum falls at 11:33 UTC, when it is daytime over Europe. The Moon is below the horizon and the eclipse cannot be seen from there.

This event pairs with the February solar one. The Aquarius-Leo axis together with a Virgo degree gives a theme of sorting things out: first an old cycle closes, then what it left behind gets sorted. Virgo covers work, routine, health and detail.

12 August: total solar at 20°02' Leo

This is the main astronomical event of the year. The path of totality crosses Iceland and Spain, while the partial phase covers almost all of Europe. Verified by calculation: in Reykjavík and Valencia the Sun is 100 percent covered, in Nuuk 79 percent, so the capital of Greenland stays outside the path of totality. The phases run from 15:34 to 19:57 UTC, maximum at 17:45.

Total solar eclipses are rare in Europe: the previous one was observed here on 11 August 1999, and after 2026 the next falls on 2 August 2027.

20°02' Leo is the middle of the sign, its strongest part. Leo covers creativity, children, visibility and the right to speak in your own name. Eclipses in middle degrees usually work as an event rather than as an ending or a beginning.

How much of the Sun goes dark in your city

These figures are computed for the actual coordinates of each city. Obscuration is the fraction of the solar disc covered by the Moon at maximum.

• Madrid: 100%, totality
• Lisbon: 95%
• Paris: 92%
• Berlin: 85%
• Warsaw: 82%
• Rome: 70%
• Lviv: 41%
• Kyiv: 4%
• Odesa: 0%, below the horizon at maximum
• Kharkiv: 0%

Forty percentage points between Lviv and Kyiv across five hundred kilometres show how narrow the path is. For solar eclipses the observation point matters, not the country.

28 August: partial lunar at 4°51' Pisces

A partial lunar eclipse covers only part of the disc. Maximum is at 04:12 UTC, phases from 02:33 to 05:52. Unlike the March one, this eclipse is visible from Europe, and the further west you are the better.

Magnitude by city: Berlin, Paris, Madrid and Lisbon all at 0.93; Warsaw 0.80; Lviv 0.73; Odesa 0.49; Kyiv 0.42; Kharkiv 0.12. A value of 0.93 means the Moon enters Earth's shadow almost completely, but without reaching totality.

This eclipse closes the August pair. Pisces covers boundaries, fatigue, compassion and whatever a person lets go of.

How an eclipse works in a personal chart

General forecasts by sign work badly precisely because of eclipses: the event is tied to a specific degree, not to the whole sign. The August eclipse sits at 20°02' Leo. It matters to anyone with a planet, chart angle or house cusp at that point, and means almost nothing for the rest of the Leos.

The orb within which an eclipse is treated as working is usually taken as three degrees. For the August event that is roughly 17° to 23° Leo. To check whether any of your planets fall there you need a natal chart built on an exact birth time.

The second thing to look at is the house the eclipse degree falls into. It shows the area of life where the event surfaces: the house of work, of partnership, of home. Without a birth time houses cannot be calculated, and this level of analysis is simply unavailable.

What to do and what not to

The common advice to start nothing during an eclipse is too broad to be useful. These markers work better.

• The week before and the week after is when decisions get revisited more often. Not because they were bad, but because new information arrives.
• A solar eclipse more often coincides with an external event: an offer, a change of terms, someone else's initiative.
• A lunar eclipse more often delivers a conclusion: something that ripened over months becomes obvious.
• If the eclipse degree touches nothing in your chart, the month passes ordinarily. That is the normal and most frequent case.

Repeat passes matter too. Slow planets cross a single point three times, and a theme opened by an eclipse often closes six months to a year later, when the transit returns to the same degree.

In short

There are four eclipses in 2026: 17 February, 3 March, 12 August and 28 August. The main one, the total solar eclipse on 12 August, covers the Sun completely in Madrid, 82 percent in Warsaw and only four percent in Kyiv. The March lunar eclipse is not visible from Europe at all; the August one is visible well.

What matters personally is not the eclipse itself but whether its degree sits next to something in your chart. Try calculating your chart for free on AstroWay and see what you have at 20° Leo and 4° Pisces. Dates of the nearest new and full Moons can be checked against the lunar calendar.