Post as thread starter, 10 August 2026. Copy the text below the line.
Right, two days to go. Reading everyone's plans is half the fun of this. Star Dodger's hedge recce is the most useful post in the thread, though, because the low altitude is the thing that will catch people out.
At maximum the Sun is only about 10° up in the WNW from London, 12–13° from Cornwall, and around 14° from Edinburgh. That's roof and treeline territory. If you haven't already, go and stand where you plan to watch at about 7pm tonight and see what's actually in the way. Much easier to sort now than at quarter past six on Wednesday.
Rough timings in BST: first contact somewhere between 18:08 and 18:19 depending where you are, maximum between 19:05 and 19:16, all finished by 20:00 to 20:10.
Worth saying, because I keep seeing it repeated: this is not a sunset eclipse. It ends 20 to 60 minutes before the Sun goes down, everywhere in the UK and Ireland. London finishes at 20:06 with sunset at 20:28. Edinburgh finishes at 20:00 and the Sun isn't down until 20:56.
Coverage, as a percentage of the Sun's area: roughly 91% from London, Manchester and Glasgow, 93% from Cardiff and Belfast, and up to about 96% at Land's End and out in the Scillies.
On safety, since a few people new to this will be reading along: certified eclipse glasses for naked eye, and any filter for binoculars or a scope goes over the front of the aperture, never at the eyepiece end. If you've got one of those little screw-in "solar" filters that came bundled with an older scope, bin it.
And if it clouds over, which it often does (London is cloudy on 12 August in about 78% of years, Edinburgh 87%), the same night is still worth staying up for. New Moon is exact at 18:36 that evening, so the Perseids get a genuinely dark sky on the 12th into the 13th.
I've put the city-by-city times and coverage figures together here in case it saves anyone the maths: https://watchthestars.co.uk/blog/_posts/2026-07-solar-eclipse-august-2026-uk-guide/
Good luck all. Hope the gaps line up.