Local circumstances
| Event | Time | Sun alt | Azimuth | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First contact — fyrsta snerting | 16:47:21 | 30.5° | 237.6° WSW | moon touches the sun's limb |
| Second contact — almyrkvi hefst | 17:48:26 | 24.5° | 252.8° WSW | totality begins — diamond ring |
| Maximum eclipse — hámark | 17:48:51 | 24.4° | 252.9° WSW | deepest point, magnitude 1.0014 |
| Third contact — almyrkva lýkur | 17:49:17 | 24.4° | 253.0° WSW | totality ends — second diamond ring |
| Fourth contact — myrkva lýkur | 18:47:40 | 18.1° | 266.6° W | moon leaves the disc |
What you will see
⚠ Eye safety
The partial phases are never safe to view with the naked eye — use certified eclipse glasses (ISO 12312-2) for the entire hour before and after totality. Only during the 51 seconds of totality may you look directly.
The partial hour
From 16:47 the moon bites into the sun's western limb, low over Faxaflói. Over an hour the crescent thins; in the last ten minutes the light turns metallic and shadows sharpen strangely.
Diamond ring & Baily's beads
At 17:48:26 the last sliver of photosphere breaks into beads through lunar valleys, then a final diamond flares and vanishes. Look for the pink chromosphere flash at the limb.
Totality — 51 seconds
The corona blooms around the black moon. A 360° sunset glows on every horizon. Venus blazes high in the SSW; Jupiter and Mercury flank the sun to the west. Temperature drops fast.
Where to look
Totality happens at 24° altitude, azimuth 253° — west-southwest, out over the bay. A raised spot with a clear WSW horizon (Gufunes headland, Grafarvogur shoreline) is ideal.
Edge of the shadow
At magnitude 1.0014 this spot sits near the southern limit of the umbra — totality here lasts 51 s versus ~2 minutes further west. Edge seats get longer, brighter bead displays in exchange.
The science
Every number here is computed, not copied: topocentric apparent positions of the sun and moon for this exact location from the JPL DE440s planetary ephemeris, including light-time, aberration and lunar parallax. Contact times are the roots of the angular-separation function against the discs' angular radii; the page's renderer replays the same geometry — the moon's on-sky offset in units of the solar radius — so the crescent you see drawn is the crescent overhead.
This is Iceland's first totality since 1954 — and the first visible from Reykjavík itself since 17 June 1433, nearly six centuries ago. The eclipse belongs to Saros 126; the moon is 3.9% wider than the sun in apparent diameter today (ratio 1.0391), and the umbra sweeps from the Arctic across western Iceland before racing on to northern Spain. Maximum obscuration here: 100% — but only just. A few kilometres south-east, the eclipse is merely 99.9% partial and the corona never appears.
The sun sets at 21:53 GMT; the entire eclipse plays out in comfortable evening light, 30° to 18° above the horizon. Timer and rendering are driven by your device clock in GMT (Iceland keeps UTC year-round).