Solar & Lunar Eclipses Visible from Lagos

Eclipse dates and contact times come from the NASA/Espenak catalog, and everything local to Lagos — whether the moon or sun is above the horizon, how high it stands, what the horizon cuts off — is computed for 6.5244°, 3.3792° and converted to Africa/Lagos. Nothing on this page is stamped with a build date: an eclipse is a catalogued instant, so where the shadow fell and how high the moon stood over Lagos are as fixed for 2024 as for 2040. Only the "next eclipse" panel at the top reads the clock, and it does so in your browser.

What the horizon decides. A lunar eclipse is visible from wherever the moon is up, which is half the planet — but an eclipse runs for hours and can straddle moonrise or moonset, and then only part of it is Lagos's. That is why each row carries the moon's altitude at greatest eclipse and, where it matters, which phase was under way as the moon crossed the horizon. An eclipse 70° up is overhead and unmistakable; the same eclipse a few degrees up is behind whatever Lagos has on its skyline.

Where this page stops. A solar eclipse row says that the moon's shadow reaches Lagos at the instant of greatest eclipse, and how high the sun stands here when it does. It does not say how much of the sun is covered: the path of totality is a couple of hundred kilometres wide against a footprint thousands of kilometres across, and this site models the footprint, not the path. Nor does it count a shallow partial from a shadow that sweeps past Lagos before or after that instant — so the 2 solar dates listed here are a floor, not a total.

Safe viewing. A lunar eclipse is safe to watch with the naked eye, binoculars, or a telescope — it is only the full moon, dimmed. A solar eclipse is not: outside the brief totality of a total eclipse, looking at the sun needs ISO 12312-2 filters, and sunglasses are not filters. For the exact path of a solar eclipse over Lagos, use NASA's eclipse site, whose maps carry the path width this page's model does not model.