Total solar eclipse of November 25, 2030

The path of totality

Namibia, Botswana and South Africa, in the early morning

South Australia to Queensland, towards sunset

Times along the path

Local clock times, in the order totality arrives. It reaches Windhoek at 7:19 AM and Durban about fifteen minutes later. After crossing the Indian Ocean the shadow reaches South Australia some two and three-quarter hours after Durban, in the early evening, and southern Queensland just before sunset.

Near the path: a partial eclipse

Watching it safely

• Look at the Sun only through eclipse glasses or a handheld solar viewer made to the ISO 12312-2 standard. Ordinary sunglasses, however dark, are not safe.
• Take the glasses off only during totality, once the Sun is completely covered, and put them back on as soon as the first bright light returns. Outside the path of totality the glasses stay on the whole time.
• Never look through a camera, binoculars or a telescope without a solar filter fitted over the front, even while wearing eclipse glasses.
• Without glasses, watch the partial phases indirectly: a pinhole in a card, or the holes of a colander, projects the crescent Sun onto the ground with the Sun behind you.

This follows NASA's eclipse safety guidance. In southern Africa totality comes in the early morning with the Sun in the east, and in Australia in the evening with the Sun in the west, low over Queensland, so choose a spot with a clear view that way.

How these times are worked out

The path, its width and the greatest eclipse come from NASA's predictions by Fred Espenak (GSFC). The times for each place are computed with Astronomy Engine, which treats the Sun and Moon as smooth spheres. NASA notes that the Moon's mountains and valleys shift the edges of the path by 1 to 3 km and change the duration by 1 to 3 seconds, so durations here are rounded down to 10 seconds. Predictions that follow the Moon's edge in detail can still come a few seconds shorter. Near sunrise and sunset the shadow moves faster than NASA's table, with a row every two minutes, can follow, so the map draws the path's edges there as straight lines; each place's own answer comes from Astronomy Engine. The path is narrow: if your spot is near an edge, check NASA's map before you travel.

The eclipses before this one have their own paths and times: the total solar eclipses of August 2, 2027 (southern Spain, North Africa and Egypt) and July 22, 2028 (Australia and New Zealand), and the annular eclipses of January 26, 2028 (the Amazon, Portugal and Spain) and June 1, 2030 (Greece, Istanbul, Siberia and Hokkaido). The next one, the annular eclipse of May 21, 2031, crosses Tanzania, southern India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia: its path and times. For every other eclipse, solar and lunar, see when the next eclipse is.