partial solar eclipse

Partial solar eclipse of 5 December 2029

Greatest eclipse

5 December 2029 at 15:02 UTC

Moon distance

360,536km

Ecliptic latitude

-1.068deg

At greatest eclipse the Moon's disc spans 0.5522° against the Sun's 0.5413° — a ratio of 1.0202. Because the Moon appears larger, it covers the Sun completely and totality is possible.

Where you can see it

The shadow axis misses Earth entirely, so nobody sees a total or annular eclipse. Everywhere in the shaded zone gets a partial one — a bite out of the Sun, best noticed through a filter rather than by looking up.

This eclipse is partial everywhere: the shadow axis misses Earth entirely, so there is no central track. Dots are the 86 cities on the tonight pages, shaded by how much of the Sun is covered there. Hollow dots see nothing. Coastlines are Natural Earth 1:110m.

Not visible at all from Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, Bruges, Liège, Leuven, Charleroi, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Eindhoven, Luxembourg, London, Manchester, Birmingham, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast, Dublin, Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, Zurich, Vienna, Prague, Warsaw, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo, Helsinki, Reykjavík, Madrid, Barcelona, Lisbon, Rome, Milan, Athens, Istanbul, New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Miami, Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Denver, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Mexico City, São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Cairo, Luxor, Cádiz, Málaga, Tangier, Benghazi, Jeddah, Dubai, Mumbai, Delhi, Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Seoul, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Auckland.

There are no greatest-eclipse coordinates for this one: the axis never reaches the ground, which is what makes it partial everywhere. The central line is computed from the Sun–Moon axis intersected with the geoid, and agrees with the reference coordinates to within a tenth of a kilometre.

Why eclipses come in seasons

The Moon's orbit is tilted about 5° to the ecliptic, so at most new and full moons it passes above or below the alignment. An eclipse needs the syzygy to coincide with the Moon being near one of the two nodes where the orbits cross. At this eclipse the Moon's ecliptic latitude was -1.068° — close enough to zero for the shadow to connect.

Times computed from VSOP87 and an ELP-derived lunar theory, validated against NOVAS and JPL Horizons to within one arcminute. See the alignment for yourself in the live simulation.