Unfortunately, the total solar eclipse on 8 April 2024 will not be visible from the Ukrainian territory in any phase. The band of the annular phase of the eclipse on 2 October 2024 will pass almost exclusively through the Southern Hemisphere, and partial eclipses will be observed in the Pacific Ocean and South America. When will the Moon be visible against the solar disc in Ukraine? Strangely enough, in less than a year – on 29 March 2025.
Next year, there will be no total or annular solar eclipses. Only two partial eclipses are expected, during which the Moon will not fully enter the disc of our star and a larger or smaller sickle will remain. The first of these will take place on 29 March. It will have really impressive maximum phase of 93.6%. However, it will only be so during sunrise at a point with coordinates 61°06′ north latitude and 77°05.3′ west longitude, located in the west of the Labrador Peninsula. At all other locations to the north, south and east, it will not get that much.
Ukraine will be at the southern limit of the eclipse’s visibility, so it will be visible only in the western regions (including Zhytomyr, but without the eastern part of Chernivtsi), as well as in the north of Vinnytsia, Kyiv, Chernihiv and Sumy regions. In the southern part of Kyiv, the eclipse will not be visible, while in Pushcha-Vodytsia it will last 16 minutes with a maximum phase of 0.6%, meaning that the Moon will cover one 160th of the solar disc. In the area of the railway station and Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the maximum phase will be only 0.2%, and the duration from the first to the last contact will not exceed 6 minutes. To see such a tiny “overlap”, you need a fairly powerful telescope with a magnification of more than a hundred times and a special protective filter.
In Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr and Chernihiv, the maximum phase will reach 2% (with an eclipse duration of 18-19 minutes), in Ternopil – 4%, in Uzhhorod – 6.2%, and in Lviv – 6.7%. The Sun will look the darkest in northwestern Volyn, not far from the Polish-Belarusian border: its disc will be covered by the Moon by more than 11%, and the total duration of the phenomenon will exceed an hour and 5 minutes. All this will happen between one and two in the afternoon Kyiv time.
Visibility zone of the partial solar eclipse on 29 March 2025 in Ukraine (shown in darker colour)
The next solar eclipse will take place on 12 August 2026, and this time, the western regions of Ukraine will be the luckiest. At sunset, partial phases of about 40% will be visible in Lviv and Uzhhorod, and Kyiv will again be near the limit of visibility. Greenland, Iceland and Spain will see the total eclipse, with the line of totality beginning on the Taimyr Peninsula, circling the North Pole and ending in the Mediterranean Sea east of the Balearic Islands.
You can read about when and where the longest total and annular solar eclipses will occur here.
