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Long annular path begins in the Pacific, crosses Ecuador and Peru, then sweeps the Amazon Basin and northern Brazil before jumping the Atlantic to land in southern Portugal (Madeira on path), northern Morocco, and the southern tip of Spain. Lisbon and Madrid are in the partial-eclipse zone, not the central path. Maximum annularity duration of 10 minutes 27 seconds occurs over the Amazon Basin.
An exceptionally long annular eclipse at 10 minutes 27 seconds maximum — Saros 141 produces these long annulars when the Moon is near apogee.
Time to greatest eclipse
Peak in your local time: 2028-01-26T15:08:59Z
Peak UTC
15:08:59
2028-01-26
Magnitude
0.921
Sun diameter
Max duration
10m 27s
central line
Obscuration
84.8%
Sun area covered
Saros
#141
41 of 70
Gamma
0.390
Shadow axis (Earth-radii)
Cities from the WorldClockTools clock catalog that fall in the central path or partial-eclipse band. Each link goes to the local clock page for that city.
Every phase of a solar eclipse outside of totality requires ISO 12312-2 certified solar viewing glasses or an equivalent solar filter on every optical instrument (telescope, binoculars, camera lens). The same standard applies to annular solar eclipses. Glasses can come off only during the brief totality window on the central path; they must go back on the instant Baily's beads reappear at third contact.
Central-line duration is 10m 27s. A typical imaging plan brackets exposures from ~1/1000s for the chromosphere and Baily's beads down to ~2s for the outer corona, fired in a programmable sequence so the observer can watch with the naked eye for at least the middle third of totality.
Local sun altitude, the path crossing time of day, and recent weather climatology drive site selection. NASA's interactive eclipse map (linked below) gives the exact altitude and time for any coordinates on the path.
Editorial dossier
Historical significance
The January 26 2028 annular solar eclipse delivers an exceptional 10 minutes 27 seconds of annularity at greatest eclipse — making it the longest annular eclipse since member 20 of the same Saros cycle on December 14 1955 (12 min 9 s), and one of only a handful of 21st-century annulars to exceed ten minutes of ring-of-fire phase. It is member 24 of 70 in Solar Saros 141, a series that began on May 19 1613 and remarkably has produced no total eclipses — only annulars from 1739 through 2640. The path crosses Ecuador, Peru, northern Brazil, French Guiana, then jumps the Atlantic to southern Portugal, southern Spain and northern Morocco.
Comparison to other eclipses
For Europe, this is the first central solar eclipse over Iberia since the August 12 2026 total over northern Spain — making the 2026-2028 window an extraordinary 18-month sequence of two solar eclipses over the same peninsula, an event without precedent in modern Spanish observational history. Saros 141 will continue producing long annulars: the next member (February 6 2046) over the central Pacific will exceed nine minutes, and the series peaks at over 12 minutes mid-century.
Astrophotography context
Greatest eclipse occurs at 15:09 UTC, with annular magnitude 0.9208 and a path width near 323 km at maximum. Over Iberia, annularity arrives in late afternoon local time with the Sun at roughly 15-25 degrees altitude — low enough to capture the ring of fire alongside terrestrial landscapes (cathedrals, cliffs, the Algarve coast). Over the Amazon basin and northern Andes, the Sun is high (60-80 degrees) in late morning local time. The long ring phase (8-10 minutes on the central line) gives ample time for filtered telephoto sequences; with such a thick annulus, Baily's beads are subdued and the contact phases are gradual.
Top viewing destinations
Sources
Eclipse data depth
Reference fields include Annular Solar Eclipse 2028-01-26: Saros context, magnitude / obscuration, path geometry, visibility countries, and city cross-references.
Data source: NASA / JPL
Eclipse data from NASA/JPL — Fred Espenak & Jean Meeus, Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses and Five Millennium Canon of Lunar Eclipses (NASA Technical Publications NASA/TP–2006-214141 and NASA/TP–2009-214172). Public domain; re-published here with attribution.
NASA page for this eclipse (path map & circumstances)eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov
Greatest eclipse: January 26, 2028 at 15:08 UTC
