Sky calendar

The next 18 months of things that happen on a date, solved from the ephemeris rather than kept in a list. Almost every one is the same instant for everybody on Earth, so a date here needs no location to be true — what is visible tonight is the list that does depend on where you are standing.

[

Coming up

] SOONEST FIRST
SHOW
EVERYTHINGMOONPLANETSMETEOR SHOWERSECLIPSESFLYBYSSUN
+WHAT THE EIGHT KINDS ARE
  • Eclipses — solar and lunar, with where on Earth each is greatest.
  • Meteor showers — dated by where the Earth is in its orbit, not by a fixed calendar day.
  • Moon phases — the four quarters, which set what else is worth chasing that fortnight.
  • Close pairings — two bright things within a few degrees of each other.
  • Oppositions — the night each outer planet is closest, biggest and up all night.
  • Elongations — the mornings and evenings Mercury and Venus stand furthest from the Sun.
  • Equinoxes and solstices — the four turning points of the year.
  • Flybys — near-Earth asteroids passing inside twenty lunar distances.
FROM WHERE
MAUNA KEAATACAMASVALBARDSYDNEYONLY WHAT I CAN SEE

Pick a place and every event will say which hours are worth being outside for it. Until you do, nothing here is answered for anywhere in particular.

ADD TO YOUR CALENDAR ↓The next twelve months as an .ics file, filtered exactly as you have it here — import it, or subscribe and it stays current.
[

August 2026

] 1 EVENT
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  • 28
    FRI
    ECLIPSE--:--

    Partial lunar eclipse

    Earth's shadow crosses 97% of the Moon's disc at the deepest point, over about 199 minutes — a clean curved bite out of a full moon, obvious to the naked eye and to a phone camera. Visible from wherever the Moon is above the horizon at the time.

    MoonEarthON THE MAP
    +WHAT TO EXPECT
    COVERED
    97% — of the disc, at the point where the eclipse is greatest
    DEEPEST PHASE
    199 min

    Nothing needed at all: a lunar eclipse is safe to watch with your eyes, and binoculars mostly add colour. It is slow — over an hour from first shadow to deepest — so it rewards going out more than once rather than standing outside for the whole of it.

[

February 2027

] 2 EVENTS
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  • 6
    SAT
    ECLIPSE--:--

    Annular solar eclipse

    The Moon passes centrally across the Sun but is too far from Earth to cover it, so at greatest eclipse — over 31.3°S, 48.5°W — a ring of Sun stays visible all the way round it, with 86% of the disc covered. It never gets dark and it is never safe to look at without a certified solar filter.

    SunMoonON THE MAP
    +WHAT TO EXPECT
    COVERED
    86% — of the disc, at the point where the eclipse is greatest
    GREATEST OVER
    31.3°S, 48.5°W — where the Moon's shadow passes closest to the centre of the Earth

    Never with an unaided eye, and never through binoculars or a telescope without a filter made for the job — a moment of it does permanent damage. Certified eclipse glasses for looking, or a pinhole in a card projecting onto a second card, which costs nothing and is safe for a crowd.

  • 20
    SAT
    ECLIPSE--:--

    Penumbral lunar eclipse

    The Moon passes through the soft outer edge of Earth's shadow, not the dark core of it. The whole disc dims slightly and unevenly — enough to notice in a photograph taken before and after, and easy to miss by eye.

    MoonEarthON THE MAP
    +WHAT TO EXPECT

    Nothing needed at all: a lunar eclipse is safe to watch with your eyes, and binoculars mostly add colour. It is slow — over an hour from first shadow to deepest — so it rewards going out more than once rather than standing outside for the whole of it.

[

July 2027

] 1 EVENT
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  • 18
    SUN
    ECLIPSE--:--

    Penumbral lunar eclipse

    A faint, even dimming as the Moon crosses the outer edge of Earth's shadow.

    MoonEarthON THE MAP
    +WHAT TO EXPECT

    Nothing needed at all: a lunar eclipse is safe to watch with your eyes, and binoculars mostly add colour. It is slow — over an hour from first shadow to deepest — so it rewards going out more than once rather than standing outside for the whole of it.

[

August 2027

] 2 EVENTS
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  • 2
    MON
    ECLIPSE--:--

    Total solar eclipse

    The Moon covers the Sun completely along a narrow track across the Earth, and takes a bite out of it for a wide margin either side. Greatest eclipse falls over 25.5°N, 33.2°E — being on that track is the whole difference between a total eclipse and a partial one, and this page does not know where you are standing. Never look at any phase of it without a certified solar filter.

    SunMoonON THE MAP
    +WHAT TO EXPECT
    COVERED
    100% — of the disc, at the point where the eclipse is greatest
    GREATEST OVER
    25.5°N, 33.2°E — where the Moon's shadow passes closest to the centre of the Earth

    Never with an unaided eye, and never through binoculars or a telescope without a filter made for the job — a moment of it does permanent damage. Certified eclipse glasses for looking, or a pinhole in a card projecting onto a second card, which costs nothing and is safe for a crowd.

  • 17
    TUE
    ECLIPSE--:--

    Penumbral lunar eclipse

    A faint, even dimming as the Moon crosses the outer edge of Earth's shadow.

    MoonEarthON THE MAP
    +WHAT TO EXPECT

    Nothing needed at all: a lunar eclipse is safe to watch with your eyes, and binoculars mostly add colour. It is slow — over an hour from first shadow to deepest — so it rewards going out more than once rather than standing outside for the whole of it.

[

January 2028

] 2 EVENTS
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  • 12
    WED
    ECLIPSE--:--

    Partial lunar eclipse

    Earth's shadow takes a 3% bite out of the full Moon.

    MoonEarthON THE MAP
    +WHAT TO EXPECT
    COVERED
    3% — of the disc, at the point where the eclipse is greatest
    DEEPEST PHASE
    58 min

    Nothing needed at all: a lunar eclipse is safe to watch with your eyes, and binoculars mostly add colour. It is slow — over an hour from first shadow to deepest — so it rewards going out more than once rather than standing outside for the whole of it.

  • 26
    WED
    ECLIPSE--:--

    Annular solar eclipse

    A ring of Sun stays visible around the Moon, greatest over 3.0°N, 51.5°W.

    SunMoonON THE MAP
    +WHAT TO EXPECT
    COVERED
    85% — of the disc, at the point where the eclipse is greatest
    GREATEST OVER
    3.0°N, 51.5°W — where the Moon's shadow passes closest to the centre of the Earth

    Never with an unaided eye, and never through binoculars or a telescope without a filter made for the job — a moment of it does permanent damage. Certified eclipse glasses for looking, or a pinhole in a card projecting onto a second card, which costs nothing and is safe for a crowd.

8 events for the 18 months from today, of the kinds selected above. Times are instants, shown on your own clock; how every number here was made.

Nothing here is a hand-kept list. Every date except the flybys is solved from the same ephemeris the rest of the site uses to place the planets, at the moment you load the page; a meteor shower is dated by the longitude the Sun reaches rather than by a day of the month, which is why its date moves a little from year to year. The same events are available as JSON and CSV.

The 26 close approaches come from NASA/JPL Center for Near-Earth Object Studies, as they stood on 2026-08-25, and cover passes inside 20 lunar distances through 2028-03-27. Unlike everything else on this page they cannot be computed from an ephemeris here — a newly discovered asteroid has no orbit until somebody measures one — so they are as complete as that date and no more.