2017 Total Solar Eclipse Map and Shapefiles

This map of the United States shows the path of the Moon's umbral shadow — the path of totality — during the total solar eclipse on August 21, 2017, as well as the obscuration (the fraction of the Sun's area covered by the Moon) in places outside the umbral path. Features include state boundaries, major highways, and 833 place names. At 18" × 9" (45 × 22.5 cm), the scale of the map is approximately 1:10,000,000. The umbra is shown at 10-minute intervals. Umbra shapes within U.S. time zones are labeled in local time. To read about the reason the shapes aren't smooth ovals, go here. The map uses a number of NASA data products. The land color is based on Blue Marble Next Generation, a global mosaic of MODIS images assembled by NASA's Earth Observatory. Elevations are from SRTM, a radar instrument flown on Space Shuttle Endeavour during the STS-99 mission. Lunar topography, used for precise shadow calculations, is from NASA LRO laser altimetry and JAXA Kaguya stereo imaging. Planetary positions are from the JPL DE421 ephemeris. The lunar limb profile and eclipse calculations are by the visualizer. The map was rendered in animation software, but maps are more typically created using GIS tools and vector datasets. A set of shapefiles describing the umbra and penumbra extents is provided below in a Zip archive. eclipse2017_shapefiles.zip contains the following five shapefiles: penum17 contains the contours for obscuration at 90%, 75%, 50%, 25% and the penumbra edge at 0%. upath17 and w_upath17 contain the path of totality. The w_ version is the complete (world) path, at somewhat reduced resolution, while the other is a high-resolution version of the path limited to the 96 degrees of longitude centered on the U.S. umbra17 and w_umbra17 contain umbra shapes spaced at 10-minute intervals, again at world and U.S. scales. The last time a total solar eclipse spanned the contiguous United States was in 1918. The path of totality entered the U.S. through the southwest corner of Washington state and passed over Denver, Jackson (Mississippi) and Orlando before exiting the country at the Atlantic coast of Florida.

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