November 25, 2030
A safari under the shadow — totality over the Namib, the Kalahari and the Outback.
On November 25, 2030, the Moon's umbra begins at sunrise in the South Atlantic, crosses Namibia's Skeleton Coast and Windhoek, sweeps through Botswana, South Africa and Lesotho, then ends as a low sunset eclipse over southeastern Australia. Maximum totality is 3 minutes 44 seconds over the southern Indian Ocean; the longest totality on land is about 2m32s, just north of Durban.
Darkness falls across the southern tip of Africa.
Where the shadow falls, the best spots to stand inside it, and how to be there — with us or on your own.
In the path: Botswana · South Africa · Indian Ocean · Australia. Total eclipse within the path; partial for hundreds of km beyond.
No events listed yet for this eclipse.
The specific good spots to stand inside the path.
Inland Namibia has the best clear-sky odds — Windhoek is cloudy only about 23% of the time on that date — with Botswana's chance of cloud also very low. Durban's odds are poor (~67% cloudy). In Australia, Streaky Bay (SA) gets a sunset eclipse with around 48% cloud risk.
Making your own plan?
Show the community where you'll be. Drop a pin so other seekers can find you.
Seeker map
Show other seekers where you're coming from — or where you'd want a gathering to happen. Pins are public. Email and phone (optional) stay private.
0 pins · 0 going · 0 would go
Or enter coordinates
The headline isn't raw duration — the greatest totality falls in the empty Indian Ocean — it's the landscapes. The shadow crosses the Namib dunes, the Kalahari and African game parks at sunrise, then bookends the day across the Australian outback at sunset. Wildlife reactions to totality, in the very places people travel to see wildlife, are a special highlight. The path crosses the July 2028 Australian eclipse track between Thargomindah and Bourke.
A safari eclipse, bracketed by two of the planet's great wild landscapes. Conveniently, the African path passes near Sossusvlei and Deadvlei, Etosha and the Kalahari; the Cape Cross seal colony in Namibia gets 1m22s of totality; Point Labatt on Australia's Eyre Peninsula gets 1m57s, with the Sun setting eclipsed.
Among the San (Bushmen) of southern Africa, a solar eclipse was explained as a crocodile eating the Sun — the belief that gave Peter Godwin's memoir its title, When a Crocodile Eats the Sun. The Khoikhoi revered the Moon as 'the Returner' and 'Lord of Light and Life,' linking both Sun and Moon to their supreme being Tsũi-//goab; an eclipse was a bad omen signaling that their god had departed, and hunters would abandon the hunt and return home at once. Further along the path's reach, the Batammaliba of Togo and Benin treat an eclipse as the Sun and Moon fighting, and gather to mend their own feuds in order to encourage peace above.
At 3m 44s of totality, the The Southern Eclipse sits 4th by duration among the 7 total solar eclipses in this series. Every eclipse in the series is its own experience — the numbers below are for context only.
Every total solar eclipse in the series, in date order. Each marker links to its page.