Every eclipse in 2026

Read down the multi-year table and the dates walk backwards by about three weeks a year. The Sun returns to the same node of the Moon's orbit every 346.6 days - an eclipse year - which is shorter than the 365.25-day calendar year, so each season arrives earlier than the last and works its way around the calendar in roughly nineteen years.

The count per year moves too. Some years hold four eclipses, others five or six, depending on whether a season is long enough to fit three new and full moons rather than two.

The Moon's orbit is tilted about 5° to the ecliptic, so most new moons pass above or below the Sun and most full moons miss Earth's shadow. Eclipses only happen near a node - one of the two points where the orbital planes intersect - and the Sun passes each node roughly every six months. That is why eclipses cluster into short seasons, and why a solar eclipse is usually flanked by a lunar one about two weeks either side.

The sub-solar point in the solar table is where the axis of the Moon's shadow meets Earth at greatest eclipse. It fixes the centre of the track, not its extent: the path of totality is a narrow band swept across the surface, while a much wider region sees a partial eclipse.

Obscuration is the fraction of the disc's area covered at maximum, so a total solar eclipse reads 100% and an annular one falls short - the Moon is near apogee, too small to cover the Sun, and leaves a ring. For lunar eclipses the figure describes how deeply the Moon enters the umbra; a penumbral eclipse touches only the outer shadow and is barely visible to the eye.