From the first bite to the last sliver, the eclipse of Monday 2 August 2027 lasts between 2 h 07 min and 2 h 24 min in Spain, depending on where you are. In Ceuta, the Spanish city on the African shore of the Strait of Gibraltar, it starts at 09:41:02 and ends at 12:01:09 Spanish time (CEST, UTC+2): 2 h 20 min, taking one time from the other and rounding to the minute. Totality, when the Sun is completely covered, is only a small slice of all that: in Ceuta, 4 min 48 s, the longest in Spain. Outside the southern path there is no totality, just the two-hour-plus partial eclipse.
The five moments of the eclipse
A total eclipse has five times that matter: first contact (the Moon touches the edge of the Sun and the partial phase begins), second contact (totality begins), maximum, third contact (totality ends) and fourth contact (the Moon leaves the Sun’s disc). Outside the path there is no second or third contact: the partial eclipse grows to its maximum and then shrinks. Why the Moon and the Sun fit together like this is explained in our learn section.
In Ceuta, with its times: it starts at 09:41:02; totality runs from 10:45:13 to 10:50:01, according to the IGN (Spain’s National Geographic Institute); maximum is at 10:47:44, and it ends at 12:01:09. From the start to maximum takes 1 h 07 min, and from maximum to the end, a little longer: 1 h 13 min.
Town by town
The start and end times are our own calculation, and the length of totality is the IGN’s. “Lasts” is one time minus the other, rounded to the minute.
| Place | Starts | Ends | Lasts | Totality (IGN) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ceuta | 09:41:02 | 12:01:09 | 2 h 20 min | 4 min 48 s |
| Melilla | 09:42:27 | 12:05:19 | 2 h 23 min | 4 min 34 s |
| Tarifa | 09:40:56 | 12:00:35 | 2 h 20 min | 4 min 38 s |
| Cádiz | 09:40:48 | 11:59:33 | 2 h 19 min | 2 min 54 s |
| Málaga | 09:42:09 | 12:02:35 | 2 h 20 min | 1 min 49 s |
| Seville | 09:41:35 | 12:00:00 | 2 h 18 min | no (98.4%) |
| Madrid | 09:45:35 | 12:02:42 | 2 h 17 min | no (86.1%) |
| Barcelona | 09:50:56 | 12:11:11 | 2 h 20 min | no (81.6%) |
| Palma | 09:49:50 | 12:13:21 | 2 h 24 min | no (89.3%) |
| A Coruña | 09:46:05 | 11:55:05 | 2 h 09 min | no (73.4%) |
| Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Canary Islands time, one hour behind) | 08:33:20 | 10:42:46 | 2 h 09 min | no (77.2%) |
The times for your own municipality are on when is it?.
Where it lasts longest and shortest
We did the same subtraction for all 8,132 Spanish municipalities:
- The longest is on Menorca: Sant Lluís sees it from 09:51:30 to 12:15:42, 2 h 24 min. And Es Castell is the last place in Spain where it ends, at 12:15:44.
- The shortest is on El Hierro, in the Canary Islands: Frontera, from 08:32:18 to 10:38:58 Canary Islands time, 2 h 07 min. On the mainland, the shortest is in Camariñas (A Coruña), from 09:45:31 to 11:54:12, 2 h 09 min.
- Inside the path, they all last between 2 h 19 min (Rota) and 2 h 23 min (Melilla).
It doesn’t last longest where most of the Sun is covered. Menorca sees about 87% of the Sun covered and has the longest eclipse in Spain, while Rota, which gets totality, is among the shortest in the path. The height of the Sun matters more. On Menorca the maximum comes with the Sun about 47° up, and on El Hierro, at 24°. The Earth turns in the same direction as the Moon’s shadow moves, and the higher the Sun, the more the ground “keeps pace” with the shadow and the more slowly the eclipse passes over you; we explain it in how fast does the eclipse shadow travel. In Luxor (Egypt), with the Sun almost 82° up, the eclipse lasts 2 h 46 min, from 11:40:20 to 14:26:31 Egyptian time. The same happens within each place: in Ceuta the second half, with the Sun higher, is the longer one.
How much of that time you notice
For most of the time the bite is small. In Madrid there are 137 minutes of eclipse with the Sun above the horizon, but only 56 of them have more than half the disc covered, and none goes past 90%. Averaged over the whole eclipse, Madrid has 41.7% of the Sun covered. In Seville it is 59 minutes above half and 16 above 90%, without ever reaching totality; in Málaga, which does get it, 61 and 17. For the length of totality in your town, see how long it lasts (in Spanish).
Glasses all the time, except in totality
The rule is the one set by the IGN and the American Astronomical Society (AAS): an EN ISO 12312-2 filter in all the partial phases, and no filter only during totality itself, from the last flash of sunlight to the first. Outside the path, that means the whole two hours and more. You don’t need to look non-stop; you can look now and then, as we explain in how long can you look through eclipse glasses. It is also more than two hours in the sun on an August morning, and the list of what to take is in what to bring to the eclipse.
On Order your glasses you can ask for ours: cardboard, with the EN ISO 12312-2 certificate, along with the phone filter and packs for groups.
More than five hours across the whole Earth
Taking the planet as a whole, the eclipse begins somewhere on Earth at 07:30 UT and ends at 12:43 UT: 5 h 13 min. The central shadow, the one that brings totality, touches the surface from 08:26 to 11:48 UT, 3 h 22 min, from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. The full route is in the shadow’s journey.
Sources: start, maximum and end times, the Sun’s altitude and the minutes above 50% and 90%: the eclipseando engine (skyfield + DE440s), with each municipality’s page; length of totality and Ceuta’s C2/C3 times: IGN — eclipses.ign.es (in Spanish); Luxor: the eclipseando engine; times when the central shadow touches the Earth and leaves it: NASA — Total Solar Eclipse of 2027 Aug 02; start and end of the eclipse on Earth: NASA’s Besselian elements, solved by eclipseando; safety rule: IGN (in Spanish) and AAS — How to View a Solar Eclipse Safely.
If you would like something to keep from the eclipse, the shop prints T-shirts, mugs and posters with the name of your town, the time of its maximum and its seconds of totality. See the merchandise →
Remember: never look at the Sun without proper eye protection (filters made to EN ISO 12312-2). The official reference for safe viewing in Spain is the IGN (in Spanish): eclipses.ign.es.