On Wednesday 12 August 2026, between roughly 6pm and 8pm, the Moon will cover around 90% of the Sun as seen from the UK ā rising to about 96% in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. It is the deepest solar eclipse visible from these islands since August 1999, and nothing comparable is due until 2081.
You will need certified eclipse glasses or a proper solar filter to look at it. Sunglasses will not do. More on that below, because it matters more than anything else on this page.
Before anything else: how not to hurt your eyes
Never look directly at the Sun, eclipsed or not, without equipment made for the job. A 90% eclipsed Sun is still overwhelmingly bright, and the retina has no pain receptors ā damage happens without you feeling it, and it can be permanent.
These do not work and are not safe: sunglasses, several pairs of sunglasses, 3D cinema glasses, smoked glass, exposed photographic film, CDs, welding goggles below shade 14, or looking at a reflection in water.
These do work:
- Certified eclipse glasses marked to ISO 12312-2. Inspect them first ā if the film is scratched, punctured or coming away from the frame, bin them. Don't use a pair you found in a drawer from 2015 without checking it carefully.
- A proper solar filter fitted to the front of a telescope or binoculars. Front-mounted only, never at the eyepiece end.
- Pinhole projection. Punch a small hole in card, hold it up, and let the Sun project through it onto a second sheet of card. You look at the projection, not the Sun. Works with a colander, a cheese grater, or the gaps in a straw hat.
- Somebody else's telescope. Check whether your nearest astronomical society is running an event ā most will be, they will have proper solar kit, and they are usually delighted to have visitors.
- A livestream. The Royal Observatory Greenwich is streaming from around 6.10pm on YouTube and Facebook.
Never look through an unfiltered telescope or binoculars, even for a moment. The concentrated light will cause irreversible damage far faster than the naked eye.
What actually happens, and when
The UK sits outside the path of totality, which crosses Greenland, Iceland, northern Spain, the Balearics and a corner of Portugal. What we get is a very deep partial ā the Sun reduced to a thin crescent low in the western sky.
Approximate timings. Check your own location before the day, because they shift by several minutes across the country and a few sources disagree.
| Stage | Roughly |
|---|---|
| Eclipse begins | shortly after 6:00pm BST |
| Maximum coverage | between about 7:05pm and 7:13pm BST |
| Eclipse ends | around 8:06pm BST |
| Total duration | about 1 hour 50 minutes |
In London the partial phase begins around 6:17pm, peaks about 7:13pm, and ends around 8:06pm.
Coverage varies with how close you are to the path of totality:
| Where | Approximate coverage |
|---|---|
| Isles of Scilly, west Cornwall | up to 96% |
| Cardiff, Belfast, south-west Wales | ~93ā94% |
| London, Midlands | ~90% |
| North-east Scotland | ~88% |
An extra percentage point is worth far less than a clear sky. Do not drive three hours for 2% more coverage ā drive towards the gap in the cloud.
The thing most people will get wrong
This eclipse happens with the Sun low in the sky. At maximum it will be roughly 10ā15Ā° above the western to west-north-western horizon, depending where you are. From Cumbria it's around 13Ā°. By the time the eclipse ends it may be only 6Ā° up.
That means a hedge, a terrace of houses, a line of trees or a bank of distant coastal cloud can hide the entire event even if the sky above your head is perfectly clear. Height and openness matter more than location.
Do this the evening before: go to the spot you are planning to use, at the same time of day, and check that you can actually see the Sun. If you can't, you still have time to find somewhere better. This single step will save more eclipses than any other piece of advice on this page.
What you're looking for is an unobstructed view west to west-north-west. Coastal sites facing west are ideal. So are hilltops, open moorland, and the upper floors of car parks.
Be realistic about the weather. Long-run statistics suggest no UK location has much better than about a 30% chance of clear skies in mid-August. Have a backup site and be willing to move.
What it will look like
The Moon crosses the Sun from right to left. At maximum you'll see a thin crescent with the horns pointing downwards ā an inverted, frowning crescent, which is an unusual and rather unsettling shape to see in the sky.
At 90%+ coverage the light changes character noticeably. It goes flat and slightly metallic, shadows sharpen, and the temperature drops. Birds often go quiet. It won't go dark ā 90% sounds like a lot but the Sun is so bright that even a sliver keeps the landscape lit ā and the effect is stranger for that. Something is clearly wrong with the light and it's hard to say exactly what.
If you have a pinhole projector, look at the shadows under trees at maximum. Every gap in the leaves acts as its own pinhole camera, and the ground will be covered in hundreds of tiny crescents.
Photographing it
- Your phone will not do it justice, and pointing a phone at the Sun without a filter can damage the sensor.
- A DSLR or mirrorless camera needs a proper solar filter over the front of the lens. A neutral density filter is not a solar filter.
- The low Sun is actually an opportunity ā you can compose the eclipsed crescent against a landscape, a building or a coastline in a way that a high-altitude eclipse never allows. Wide shots will beat heavily cropped ones.
- Sort your filter out now. There will be none available on the 12th.
Then stay up, because the same night is the best meteor shower in years
Here is the part that hasn't been widely reported. This eclipse happens at new Moon ā that's what an eclipse is, the Moon passing between us and the Sun.
Which means that a few hours later, the sky is as dark as it ever gets. And the Perseid meteor shower peaks that same night, in the early hours of 13 August, with no moonlight at all to wash out the fainter meteors. It's the best combination of Perseid timing and Moon phase in years.
Eclipse in the evening, meteors before dawn, on the same day. If you're going to make one trip to a dark site this year, this is the night.
Our full Perseids guide has the timings and where to look, and our list of every UK dark sky place will help you pick somewhere to go.
What comes next
If you miss this one, the wait is long:
| Event | Date | UK coverage |
|---|---|---|
| Partial lunar eclipse | 28 August 2026 | ~90% of the Moon |
| Partial solar eclipse | 2030 | ~50% |
| Deep partial solar eclipse | 3 September 2081 | up to 99% |
| Total solar eclipse | 2090 | totality |
The 90% partial lunar eclipse on 28 August is worth putting in the diary now ā it's two weeks after the solar eclipse, it needs no filters at all, and lunar eclipses are entirely safe to look at with the naked eye.
Checklist for the 12th
- Certified eclipse glasses, ISO 12312-2, checked for damage
- Site with a clear view west to west-north-west, tested the evening before
- Backup site chosen
- Forecast checked on the morning of the 12th
- Card for pinhole projection
- Solar filter fitted and tested if you're using optics
- Something to sit on, and warm layers if you're staying out for the Perseids
Clear skies. If you do get out, we'd genuinely like to see what you managed ā send us a photograph.
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Header image: NASA/Bill Ingalls