Total Solar Eclipse August 2, 2027: Path, Times and the Best Places to See It

Jump to comment (1)

On Monday, August 2, 2027, the Moon’s shadow will sweep in from the Atlantic, cross the Strait of Gibraltar, skim the north coast of Africa, pass over the Nile at Luxor and run down the Red Sea toward the Indian Ocean. Inside a band about 160 miles (258 kilometers) wide, the Sun will go completely dark for as long as 6 minutes and 23 seconds. That is the longest total eclipse anyone on land will see until 2114, and it falls on some of the most visited places on Earth: the beaches of southern Spain, the Rock of Gibraltar, Tangier, and the temples of ancient Thebes.

The short answer: totality crosses southern Spain, Gibraltar, northern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia between about 08:23 and 11:50 UTC. The longest views are in Egypt, where Luxor gets about 6 minutes 22 seconds of darkness just after 1 p.m. local time. Southern Spain and Gibraltar get up to about four and a half minutes in the late morning. Clear-sky odds are excellent along most of the track, so the bigger obstacles are likely to be heat, dust and hotel rooms. Here is the path, the times for major cities, the weather picture and how to watch safely.

When is the 2027 total solar eclipse?

The eclipse happens on the morning of August 2 in Europe and northwest Africa and in the early afternoon in Egypt and Arabia. According to timeanddate.com, the partial phase first touches Earth at 07:30 UTC, the total phase begins over the Atlantic at 08:23 UTC and ends over the Indian Ocean at 11:50 UTC, and the last of the partial eclipse leaves Earth at 12:43 UTC. Greatest eclipse, the moment the shadow’s axis passes closest to Earth’s center, comes at about 10:07 UTC in the desert of southern Egypt, by the calculations of retired NASA astrophysicist Fred Espenak.

Timeanddate estimates that about 89 million people live inside the path of totality and about 4.6 billion people, more than half the world, can see at least part of the eclipse. The partial phase covers Europe, most of Africa, the Middle East and much of South Asia. In the Americas there is almost nothing to see: a small bite is visible right after sunrise in Newfoundland, eastern Brazil and the far northeastern tip of the United States, and that is all.

Why this eclipse lasts so long

Most total eclipses last two or three minutes at any one spot. The April 2024 eclipse over North America, which many people considered generous, peaked at 4 minutes 28 seconds. The 2027 eclipse beats that by almost two minutes because three things line up at once.

A big Moon. The Moon is close to perigee, the nearest point in its slightly oval orbit, so it looks larger than usual. At greatest eclipse it appears about 8 percent wider than the Sun, according to NASA’s eclipse catalog, which leaves a wide margin before any sunlight can slip past its edge.

A small Sun. Earth reaches aphelion, its farthest point from the Sun, in early July. Four weeks later it is still near that distance, so the Sun looks a little smaller than it does in January.

A shadow that lingers. Greatest eclipse falls at about 25.5 degrees north, close to the Tropic of Cancer, with the Sun about 82 degrees up in the sky. Near the tropics at midday, Earth’s rotation carries the ground eastward in the same direction the shadow is moving, so the shadow slides past more slowly than it does at higher latitudes. A nearly overhead Sun also gives the smallest, slowest-moving shadow footprint.

The 2027 eclipse also belongs to a famous family. Eclipses repeat in a cycle called the saros, about 18 years and 11 days long, and this one is the 38th member of Saros 136, the series that has produced the longest eclipses of modern times. Its recent members, with their maximum durations from NASA’s saros catalog, read like a countdown:

June 20, 1955: 7 minutes 8 seconds over Southeast Asia, the longest of the series.

June 30, 1973: 7 minutes 4 seconds over Africa. Scientists aboard the Concorde prototype 001 chased the shadow across the Sahara at supersonic speed and stretched their view of totality to 74 minutes, a record that still stands.

July 11, 1991: 6 minutes 53 seconds, crossing Hawaii and Mexico.

July 22, 2009: 6 minutes 39 seconds, the longest of the 21st century, but its maximum fell over the open Pacific.

August 2, 2027: 6 minutes 23 seconds, the longest of the century over land.

August 12, 2045: 6 minutes 6 seconds. The next member of the family crosses the United States from California to Florida, so the eclipse that darkens Luxor is, in a sense, a preview of America’s next coast-to-coast totality.

Where to see totality, country by country

To see the total eclipse you have to be inside the path. Standing just outside it is not almost as good; it is a completely different experience. Aswan, Egypt, just south of the track, will see 99.6 percent of the Sun’s diameter covered and never get the corona. Seville, Spain, gets a deep partial eclipse but no totality. Duration also falls off quickly toward the edges, so a short drive toward the center line can add minutes. Times below are local clock times from timeanddate.

Southern Spain and Gibraltar

Spain is in the middle of a run of three eclipses: a total eclipse at sunset across the north of the country on August 12, 2026, this one across the far south in 2027, and an annular "ring of fire" eclipse on January 26, 2028. The government’s official Trio of Eclipses site covers travel advice for all three. In 2027 the Sun will be fairly high in the eastern sky in the late morning.

Cádiz: maximum at 10:46 a.m., with 2 minutes 56 seconds of totality. The city sits near the northern edge of the path.

Gibraltar: maximum at 10:47 a.m., with 4 minutes 28 seconds. The Sun stands about 38 degrees high in the east, so the flatter southern end of the peninsula near Europa Point has the clearest view.

Málaga: maximum at 10:49 a.m., but only 1 minute 57 seconds because the city is close to the northern limit. Heading southwest along the coast toward Marbella and Estepona moves you closer to the center line.

Ceuta: the Spanish city on the African side of the strait gets 4 minutes 49 seconds, with maximum at 10:47 a.m.

Morocco: Tangier and the Rif

Tangier: 4 minutes 51 seconds of totality, with maximum at about 08:47 UTC. Morocco normally keeps its clocks an hour ahead of GMT, so confirm the local time closer to the date. Canadian meteorologist Jay Anderson, whose Eclipsophile climate analysis is the standard reference for eclipse weather, says the beaches along the Bay of Tangier and the east side of the city are the best bets, because morning sea fog tends to hang on the Atlantic side of the peninsula. He suggests avoiding the Atlantic beach towns of Asilah and Larache, where marine cloud can linger past totality, and the Mediterranean coast between Tetouan and El Jebha, where cloud packs against the Rif Mountains. The east side of Tetouan is a reasonable alternative.

Algeria and Tunisia

Oran: 5 minutes 9 seconds, with maximum at 9:53 a.m. The track then climbs over Algeria’s high plateau and the Aurès Mountains into Tunisia. Anderson rates the area around Sfax, on Tunisia’s coast, as having the lowest average cloud on the western half of the path. The plateau is also a dust source, so watch dust forecasts there.

Libya

Benghazi: 6 minutes 11 seconds, with maximum at 11:30 a.m. Anderson calls it a very good site, and parts of Libya have recorded no August cloud on eclipse day in more than two decades of satellite data. The catch is access: Libya, like Yemen and Somalia farther along the track, sits at the highest level of government travel warnings, including the U.S. State Department’s "Do Not Travel," so check your own government’s advisory before planning anything there.

Egypt: Luxor and the Nile

Luxor: the partial eclipse begins at 11:40 a.m., totality is centered on 1:05 p.m., and the partial phase ends at 2:26 p.m. Totality lasts about 6 minutes 22 seconds, with the Sun almost straight overhead. The point of greatest duration, 6 minutes 23 seconds, is in the desert roughly 60 kilometers (37 miles) southeast of the city. Cairo is outside the path and gets a partial eclipse covering about 94 percent of the Sun.

Luxor is the headline destination because it pairs the longest totality with Karnak, Luxor Temple and the Valley of the Kings. It is not the only Egyptian option. Forbes Middle East lists Siwa and Bahariya oases, Dendera, Abydos and the Red Sea coast near Berenice as other places inside the path, and Anderson singles out Siwa and Bahariya as the closest thing to a weather guarantee anywhere on the track.

Oxford University astrophysicist Roger Davies, who will be in Luxor as the trip scholar on an eclipse tour, told CNN what that extra time buys:

Six minutes and 23 seconds is a very long time. Your eyes will adjust to the darkness. (Roger Davies, University of Oxford, to CNN, August 2026)

On a typical eclipse, he added, viewers see a couple of planets and the brightest stars. With this much darkness, he hopes to see far more.

Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia

Jeddah: 5 minutes 55 seconds, with maximum at 1:25 p.m. Mecca: 5 minutes 14 seconds at 1:26 p.m., though the city is open only to Muslims. Anderson notes that cloud and dust both rise once the shadow crosses the Red Sea. The coastal Tihamah plain stays fairly clear but is the dustiest stretch of the whole track, and the mountains behind it build cloud. After Yemen and the tip of Somalia, the shadow heads out over the Indian Ocean and leaves Earth near the Chagos Archipelago.

Weather: where the odds are best

Anderson writes that cloud cover for this eclipse is among the lowest he has analyzed in 45 years. The main exceptions are on the western end. Along the Atlantic coasts of Spain and Morocco, cool ocean water breeds morning fog and low cloud that may not burn off before the late-morning totality. In his survey of recent summers, Cádiz had sun-visible conditions on 88 percent of days, while beach sites farther south toward Tarifa averaged 74 percent. His advice is simple: go inland, where Spanish sites average less than 15 percent cloud.

The real wildcard in North Africa and Arabia is dust. Most high dust plumes are thin enough to see the eclipse through, if not perfectly. A thick, ground-level storm is a different story, and those are most likely near the sources on Algeria’s plateau, in the Sahara and along Saudi Arabia’s coast. Dust can be forecast about three days ahead, so build some flexibility into your plans.

Heat, crowds and what it will cost

August in Upper Egypt is brutally hot. Anderson found that Luxor’s average high on August 2 over 17 years was 42 °C (about 108 °F), with a peak of 46 °C. Many cameras warn of overheating around 45 °C and may shut down, especially when shooting video; he suggests draping a damp white cloth over your gear. The air will cool noticeably as the shadow approaches, but the hours of partial eclipse beforehand are spent in full sun. Bring shade, water and a friend who will watch you for signs of heatstroke while you watch the sky.

Rooms are the other problem. CNN reported in August 2026 that more than 90 percent of Luxor accommodations on Booking.com for eclipse dates were already unavailable, with many remaining hotels asking upward of £2,000 (about $2,695) a night. Organized tours seen by Forbes Middle East ran from about $7,310 to $11,580 per person, and several were full a year out. Spain will be busy too: CNN, citing The Independent, reported that select hotel prices in Spain rose 135 percent ahead of the August 2026 eclipse.

What we know about Egypt’s plans

In May 2026, Egypt’s Minister of Tourism and Antiquities, Sherif Fathy, formed a committee to organize eclipse events, receive delegations, manage traffic and prevent crowding at viewing sites. The National Research Institute of Astronomy and Geophysics began its scientific and organizational preparations on October 10, 2026, according to Egypt’s State Information Service. The institute’s Kottamia telescope outside Cairo will observe the partial phase.

What’s still unclear

As of the latest reporting, Egypt had not announced official viewing sites, expected visitor numbers, extra hotel and Nile cruise capacity, or flight, transport and emergency medical plans. If you are going independently, book refundable rooms early and watch for official announcements as the date gets closer.

How to watch it safely

The rules from NASA are short. During every partial phase, before and after totality, look at the Sun only through eclipse glasses or a handheld solar viewer that meets the ISO 12312-2 standard. Ordinary sunglasses are not safe, however dark. Never look through binoculars, a camera or a telescope while wearing eclipse glasses, because the focused light will burn through them; optics need their own solar filter mounted on the front.

You may take your glasses off only once the Moon covers the Sun completely, when nothing at all shows through the filter. The moment a bright bead of sunlight reappears on the other side, put them back on. If you have no glasses, a pinhole in an index card, or the holes of a kitchen colander, will project crescent Suns onto the ground. And because you may be outside for nearly three hours, wear sunscreen and a hat.

Inside totality, look for the corona spreading around the black Moon, pink prominences at its edge, planets and bright stars appearing in a midday sky, and a 360-degree sunset glow on the horizon. NASA notes that the temperature can fall by about 5 °C during a total eclipse. For a sense of how much science has come out of these few minutes of darkness, see how an 1868 eclipse led to the discovery of helium. And if you want a sky event to watch from home first, our Geminid meteor shower guide covers this December’s peak.

The bottom line

The August 2, 2027 total solar eclipse is the longest over land for the rest of this century and the best-placed for travelers in years. If you can choose, Egypt offers the longest totality and the surest skies, with Luxor for the scenery and the western desert oases for the weather. Southern Spain and Gibraltar offer four minutes or more in the late morning with easy travel, as long as you stay away from foggy coasts. Wherever you go, get inside the path, book early, plan for heat and dust, and bring certified glasses for the hours on either side of the main event.

Related on aglena: The 5 Best Solar Prominence Images Ever Captured, The Carrington Event: The 1859 Solar Storm That Set Telegraphs on Fire

Further reading