Eclipse 2028 Planning Guides

These guides and tools cover the parts of planning for 22 July 2028 that the individual city pages cannot: the decisions that come before you pick a town, and the skills you will use on the day itself. Each guide stands alone, but they were written as a set, and they cross-reference each other where one decision depends on another.

If this is your first total eclipse, start with the first-timer's plan - it covers where to be, when to book, and what the day actually looks like hour by hour. Read the how-eclipses-work guide alongside it, because understanding why a 99 percent partial eclipse is nothing like totality is what makes the rest of the planning worth doing. Then choose your region: the inland NSW road-trip guide and the NZ sunset eclipse guide argue the two main alternatives to watching from Sydney.

Two guides matter most in the final weeks. The weather guide sets out a 48-hour decision framework you should read well before eclipse week, then follow mechanically when it arrives. The photography guide comes last, deliberately - its central advice is to automate everything or bring nothing, and to spend your first totality watching the sky rather than a screen.

How to See the 2028 Total Solar Eclipse: A First-Timer's Plan

For anyone who has never stood in the Moon's shadow and wants one plan to follow. The most useful part is the eclipse-day timeline: where to be by late morning, exactly when glasses go on and come off, and why you should stay put after totality instead of joining the traffic.

Photographing the 2028 Eclipse: From Phone to Telephoto

For photographers deciding how much gear to commit, from phone to telephoto. The core of it is a bracketed exposure ladder for totality that you automate in advance — plus a blunt case for watching your first eclipse with your eyes and photographing your second.

Why Aotearoa New Zealand Gets a Sunset Eclipse in 2028

For anyone watching from the South Island, where totality arrives with the Sun under 10 degrees high and terrain can hide the whole event. The single most useful idea: stand on your intended spot at 4:15 p.m. on a clear July afternoon beforehand — if you can see the Sun then, your site works.

The Inland NSW Eclipse Road Trip: Sydney to Dubbo to Bourke

For travellers weighing Sydney's convenience against longer totality and clearer inland skies. Its centrepiece is the totality corridor table — Bourke's 4 minutes 6 seconds down to Sydney's 3:48 — and the case for basing at Dubbo with room to reposition on eclipse morning.

Eclipse Weather: How to Read Cloud Forecasts Like a Chaser

For everyone, wherever you plan to watch. The takeaway is a written 48-hour decision schedule: historical cloud statistics choose your base months out, model forecasts choose your region at 48 hours, and the live satellite loop makes the final move-or-stay call at dawn.

How Total Solar Eclipses Work: Magnitude, Saros, and Why Totality Is So Rare

For readers who want the mechanics behind the spectacle: magnitude versus obscuration, the saros cycle, and why Sydney waited 171 years. Its most useful clarification is that totality is a switch, not a dial — which is the reason travelling into the path matters at all.

Interactive Tools and Special Resources

Build a personal plan, compare totality with a deep partial eclipse, or use a resource written for history, classrooms, families, accessibility and citizen science.

Totality vs 99%: Why One Percent Changes Everything

Compare a 99% partial eclipse with totality: corona visibility, brightness, eye protection, contact timing, and why the umbral path matters.

Build Your 2028 Eclipse-Day Plan

Create and print a private 2028 eclipse checklist based on totality status, group, transport, access needs, and weather fallback choices.

Sydney's 1857 Total Solar Eclipse

A source-led guide to researching Sydney's 25 March 1857 total solar eclipse and comparing historical records carefully with the 2028 event.

Dunedin's 1163 Total Solar Eclipse

NASA's catalogue confirms 27 December 1163 as Dunedin's last total solar eclipse before 22 July 2028 - what that record does and doesn't establish.

Eclipse Weather Decision Timeline

A 30-day to eclipse-morning weather workflow using climatology, forecasts, warnings, satellite imagery, travel limits, and fixed movement deadlines.

Travelling to Totality from Outside the Path

Plan travel from Melbourne, Brisbane, Canberra, Adelaide or Auckland without turning rough distance, city names, or eclipse maps into unsafe promises.

Eclipse Day with Children: A Family Safety Guide

Plan a safe, calm 2028 eclipse day with children: viewer practice, supervision roles, waiting time, identification, sensory needs, and filter timing.

Eclipse 2028 Classroom Pack: Lessons and Activities

A classroom-ready sequence for teaching eclipse geometry, safe projection, contact times, evidence quality, and observation planning for 22 July 2028.

Citizen Science During the 2028 Eclipse

Design a repeatable eclipse observation of temperature, light, shadows, sound, or animal behaviour without compromising eye safety.

Accessible Eclipse Viewing Guide

Plan step-free access, seating, toilets, transport, sensory needs, communication, medication, and companion roles for eclipse day.

Start with the Basics

New to eclipses? Read the first-timer's plan, then pick your city from the city guides hub and check eye safety before the day.