Total solar eclipse of Aug 12, 2026: how it looked from every city

Watching safely

• Never look at the Sun without eclipse glasses or a handheld solar viewer that meets the ISO 12312-2 standard, even when most of it is covered. Sunglasses are not enough.
• Don't look through a camera, binoculars or a telescope without a proper solar filter over the front, even while wearing eclipse glasses: they concentrate the light and can burn your eye in an instant.
• Only once the Sun is completely covered, inside the path of totality, can you take your glasses off. Put them back on as soon as the first bright point of the Sun returns.
• No glasses? Poke a small hole in a card and let the sunlight fall through it onto the ground: you'll see little crescents. The gaps between leaves do the same.

What you'll see

As the Moon covers more of the Sun, the light turns strange and shadows get sharp. In the last seconds, beads of sunlight flash along the Moon's edge, then the sky goes dark like late twilight. The brightest stars and planets come out, and the Sun's pearly outer air, the corona, appears around the black Moon. Then the light snaps back.

Outside the path, it's a partial eclipse: a bite out of the Sun that grows, then shrinks. Even 90% covered, the day only looks a little dim.