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About one hour and forty-seven minutes in all. No need to arrive at 19:18: the real show begins around 19:55 and does not let up.
There is a way to watch without wearing anything: make a small hole in one piece of card and, with your back to the Sun, project its image onto another. The full crescent will appear, with no risk to your eyes.
Weather: a light veil of cloud may soften the crescent without preventing observation, but thicker cloud may hide the Sun.
Cooler air: a drop in temperature may be noticeable around maximum; how much will depend on the weather, wind and location.
Shape: as it sinks, the Sun flattens. The atmosphere bends its lower limb more than its upper one, so at the horizon it still measures 31.6 arcminutes across but only 26.3 high. It does not grow: that is an illusion, and it disappears in photographs.
Trees: patches of light on the ground turn into crescents. It is the loveliest detail of the eclipse, and hardly anyone looks for it.
Next eclipse: Belgium will not see one this deep again before 2081. The last was in 1999. This one is worth the trip.
Astronomy: the solar position is calculated on your device using the NOAA/Meeus algorithms, with atmospheric refraction corrected according to Bennett. The local eclipse circumstances come from the Royal Observatory of Belgium and the NASA/GSFC Besselian elements calculated by Fred Espenak.
Obscuration: the crescent’s progression uses a simplified two-disc geometrical model with a diameter ratio of k = 1.03. Relative motion is calibrated separately before and after maximum against the published first- and last-contact times.
Geography and elevation: bearings and distances use spherical geodesy. Coordinates, elevations and landmarks were cross-checked against Geopunt Vlaanderen/DHMV II, topographic-map.com, Google Maps, BruGIS/UrbIS and the Belgian NGI/IGN. Aeronautical data come from skeyes and the Belgian AIP.
Rendering: the apparent flattening of the Sun simulates differential refraction. Disc and sky colours are interpolated from predefined visual values and are not a spectral calculation. The urban skylines are SVG illustrations adapted to the viewing axes.
Credits: concept, art direction, graphic design, research, writing and prompting: Branislav Milić. Development and verification assisted by Anthropic Claude and OpenAI ChatGPT.
v 1.0 · 12 August 2026
This page is a technical experiment. It aims simply to guide and advise you when watching the eclipse from several viewpoints across Brussels, each with its own landmark and key moment. It works just as well from anywhere in the city with a clear view to the west during the two hours before sunset.
Choose your viewpoint using the buttons above the chart. The Sun’s path is recalculated for the site’s coordinates; the landmark, skyline and advice adapt to the selected location. Try them all: no two tell quite the same story of the eclipse. Tip: when Google Maps guides you towards the indicated location and you are getting close, wait at least twenty seconds for your position to stabilise before adjusting your exact location in relation to the red marker.
Protect your eyes. ISO 12312-2 certified eclipse glasses are required from start to finish, including when the Sun is low. I recommend this pack of ten, leaving enough for the people with you. For photography, use only a filter designed for the lens and follow the manufacturer’s instructions.
See the What you will see section. It follows the slider and describes, at each moment, the shape of the disc, the changing light and what you will actually be able to observe.
Do not use your phone’s compass to check the bearings shown in this app. In the city, masonry and steel structures can distort the magnetometer by as much as fifteen degrees. This is a known limitation of these sensors. Use the visual landmark given in the Where to look section instead.
Three times to remember. First contact at 19:18, maximum at 20:13 with nine tenths of the Sun hidden, then the end at 21:05:30, about four minutes before sunset. There is no need to arrive at 19:18: everything happens after 19:55.
The page works offline once loaded. Add it to your Home Screen: the mobile network may be congested on site. The skyline profiles and actual visibility behind buildings or vegetation still need to be checked on location and will be refined before 12 August.