This is the great eclipse of 2027. The Moon’s dark shadow runs across the Strait of Gibraltar, over Libya and Egypt and on across Saudi Arabia and Yemen to Somalia, and at its greatest, in the south of Egypt, the Sun is hidden for 6 minutes and 23 seconds with the Sun almost overhead, which is an unusually long and well placed totality. People in the narrow path will see the sky go dark in mid-morning, and the stars come out. Across the rest of Africa, Europe, the Middle East and south Asia the eclipse is partial.
The path of totality
NASA lists the countries on the path as Morocco, Spain, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Somalia. The shadow reaches the Earth in the Atlantic, touches the southern tip of Spain and the north of Morocco, and runs eastward across the desert. The greatest eclipse is at 10:06 UT near 25.5 degrees north and 33.2 degrees east, in southern Egypt. The path is about 258 km wide there, and the length of totality falls off towards the edges.
Seen from India
The Moon’s outer shadow reaches India in the late afternoon, when the Sun is still well above the horizon, so every Indian city sees a partial eclipse. The further south and west the city, the more of the Sun is covered. In New Delhi the eclipse begins at 15:53 IST, peaks at 16:29 with about 8 per cent of the Sun’s width covered, and ends at 17:02. Mumbai sees it begin at 15:47, peak at 16:41 with 43 per cent of the width and 32 per cent of the disc hidden, and end at 17:31. Bengaluru and Chennai see about 39 and 34 per cent of the disc hidden, Ahmedabad 24, Hyderabad 27, Pune 32, Jaipur 12 and Kolkata only 6 per cent. In every case it is a gentle partial eclipse, with the daylight slightly dimmer, and not a dramatic one. Of the two ways to measure it, the magnitude is the share of the Sun’s width covered and the obscuration is the share of its disc that is hidden. The table gives both.
Seen from our other cities
London sees it in the morning: it begins at 09:03 British Summer Time, peaks at 10:00 with 42 per cent of the disc covered, and ends at 10:59. Dubai and Doha see more, 53 and 62 per cent, with the greatest at about 14:43 and 13:39. Nairobi sees 31 per cent at 14:01. Kathmandu sees only 2 per cent. In Singapore and Kuala Lumpur the eclipse is under way at sunset, and the Sun goes down before it ends. None of the cities in North America or Australia sees it.
Sutak in India
Because the eclipse is visible in India, the sutak applies. It begins twelve hours before first contact, so in New Delhi it begins at 03:53 IST on 2 August, in Mumbai at 03:47, and it ends when the eclipse ends. The table gives the start for each city. Customs differ widely, and some families and temples follow different timings, so take guidance from your own. Pregnant women, children, the elderly and the unwell are generally excused from fasting. The day is also Amavasya, the new moon, about which more is on the Amavasya page.
In the Hindu calendar
The Sun and the Moon stand together in Karka, the sidereal Cancer, about 15.7 degrees into the sign, in Pushya nakshatra, fourth pada. Pushya lies entirely in Karka and is ruled by Saturn. These are Lahiri positions, worked out to within a few hundredths of a degree. Astrologers look at the sign and nakshatra of an eclipse, but a reading depends on your own chart and is not a forecast for anyone. Your nakshatra and Moon sign are on the nakshatra calculator and the Moon sign calculator.