Partial solar eclipse visible in Southern Hemisphere Sept 21-22 2025

A partial solar eclipse will sweep across parts of the Southern Hemisphere on the weekend of September 21, 2025, offering dramatic crescent-sun views for observers in southern New Zealand, Antarctica and scattered South Pacific islands. The event, visible in daylight hours across a remote swath south of the equator, begins in global time in the early afternoon of September 21 and reaches a maximum roughly two hours later, before ending late that same afternoon in Coordinated Universal Time.

Astronomers say the alignment occurs when the moon passes between Earth and the sun during its new moon phase, covering a portion but not the entirety of the solar disk. Although not a total eclipse, the event is unusually deep for a partial eclipse. Estimates indicate the sun will be covered by as much as 85 to 86 percent in a remote region of the far South Pacific ocean south of New Zealand. Observers on New Zealand’s South Island and at Antarctic research stations such as McMurdo can expect some of the most striking views, often coinciding with sunrise and producing a pronounced crescent or shark-fin sunrise if the eastern horizon is clear.

Timing varies by time zone. In universal time the...