Technologies

Missed the Solar Eclipse? How to Stream the Recap and Prepare for the Next Eclipse

The great American eclipse was the last total solar eclipse that will be visible over North America for 20 years. But there will be others across the globe.

The «great American eclipse» graced our skies on Monday, and if you let this rare celestial event pass you by, it’ll be quite a wait for the next one. Another total solar eclipse over North America won’t happen until 2044. The good news is you can rewatch the event with footage from the best vantage points, check out all the stunning photos of the eclipse and start preparing to see the next one.

A total solar eclipse happens when the moon passes between the Earth and the sun, blocking the sun and turning an otherwise sunny day to darkness for a short period of time. Depending on the angle at which you’re viewing the eclipse, you may see the sun completely shrouded by the moon (called totality) or some variation of it. The more off-angle you are and the farther you are from the path of the eclipse, the less likely you’ll be to see the totality.

The 2024 total solar eclipse reached the Mexican Pacific coast on April 8 at 11:07 a.m. PT (2:07 p.m. ET), and then traversed the US in a northeasterly direction from Texas to Maine and on into easternmost Canada.

If you weren’t in that path of totality, here are a look at some of the options to rewatch it online, or where you’ll have to travel for the next eclipse.

Total Solar Eclipse 2024: The Best Photos We’ve Seen

+11 More

See all photos

Total solar eclipse path in 2024

The eclipse crossed over the Pacific coast of Mexico and headed northeast over mainland Mexico. The eclipse made its way over San Antonio at approximately 2:30 p.m. ET on April 8 and moved through Texas, over the southeastern part of Oklahoma and northern Arkansas by 2:50 p.m. ET.

By 3 p.m. ET, the eclipse was over southern Illinois, and just 5 minutes later, was traveling over Indianapolis. Folks in northwestern Ohio were treated to the eclipse around 3:15 p.m. ET, and it then traveled over Lake Erie and Buffalo, New York, at around 3:20 p.m. ET. Over the following 10 minutes, the eclipse was seen over northern New York state, then over Vermont. By 3:35 p.m. ET, the eclipse worked its way into Canada and off the eastern coast of North America.

How to rewatch the solar eclipse online

NASA hosted a three-hour live stream of the eclipse, which included commentary by NASA experts, astronauts on the international space station, celebrities and looks at watch parties across the nation. It featured views from locations in the path of totality, including Dallas and Kerrville, Texas; Russellville, Arkansas; NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Ohio; Indianapolis; Carbondale, Illinois; Niagara Falls, New York; and Houlton, Maine.

You can rewatch the live broadcast on streaming service NASA Plus or on NASA’s website, or rewatch the stream on CNET’s YouTube channel.

Where and when is the next solar eclipse?

While the next total solar eclipse won’t be visible over North America for 20 years, there will be other partial, annular and total eclipses across the world. Here are the next five:

Oct. 2, 2024: An annular solar eclipse, visible from South America; and a partial eclipse, visible in South America, Antarctica, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and North America.
March 29, 2025: A partial solar eclipse, visible from Europe, Asia, North America, South America, Africa, the Atlantic Ocean and the Arctic Ocean.
Sept. 21, 2025: A partial solar eclipse, visible in Australia, Antarctica, the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.
Feb. 17, 2026: An annular solar eclipse, visible in Antarctica; and a partial eclipse, visible in Antarctica, Africa, South America, the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean.
Aug. 12, 2026: The next total solar eclipse will be visible from Greenland, Iceland, Spain, Russia and a small area of Portugal; a partial eclipse will be visible from Europe, Africa, North America, the Atlantic Ocean, the Arctic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.

Best places to watch an eclipse

When evaluating the best places to watch one of those upcoming eclipses, you’ll first want to determine where you’ll have the best angle to see the totality. The farther off-angle you are — in other words, the farther north or south of the eclipse’s path — the less of an impact you can expect.

Therefore, if you want to have the best chance of experiencing the eclipse, you’ll want to be in its path. When the eclipses come closer, check for details on what cities will have the best vantage points.

Eclipse eye safety and photography

When preparing for the next solar eclipses, it’s critical you keep eye safety in mind.

During an eclipse, and especially during the periods before and after totality, don’t look directly at the sun without special eye protection. Also, be sure not to look at the sun through a camera (including the camera on your phone), binoculars, a telescope or any other viewing device. This could cause serious eye injury. Sunglasses aren’t enough to protect your eyes from damage.

If you want to view the eclipse, you’ll instead need solar viewing glasses that comply with the ISO 12312-2 safety standard. Anything that doesn’t meet that standard or greater won’t be dark enough to protect your eyes.

If you don’t have eclipse viewing glasses handy, you can instead use indirect methods for viewing the eclipse, like a pinhole projector.

Read more: A Photographer’s Adventure With the Eclipse

In the event you want to take pictures of the eclipse, attach a certified solar filter to your camera. Doing so will protect your eyes and allow you to take photos while you view the eclipse through your lens.

There’s also a new app to help you both protect your eyes and take better photos of the eclipse on your phone. Solar Snap, designed by a former Hubble Space Telescope astronomer, comes with a Solar Snap camera filter that attaches to the back of an iPhone or Android phone, along with solar eclipse glasses for protecting your eyesight during the event. After you attach the filter to your phone, you can use the free Solar Snap Eclipse app to zoom in on the eclipse, adjust exposure and other camera settings, and ultimately take better shots of the eclipse.

2024 eclipse compared to 2017

The previous total solar eclipse occurred in 2017, and many Americans had a great view. Although there are plenty of similarities between the 2017 total solar eclipse and the one on April 8, there were a handful of differences. Mainly, the 2024 eclipse covered more land and lasted longer.

The 2017 eclipse started over the northwest US and moved southeast. Additionally, that eclipse’s path was up to 71 miles wide, compared with a maximum width of 122 miles for this year’s eclipse. Perhaps most importantly, the moon completely covered the sun for just 2 minutes, 40 seconds in 2017. This year, maximum totality lasted for nearly four-and-a-half minutes.

For more on the Great American Eclipse, check out CNET’s coverage on expert eye protection and viewing tips, where to get free solar eclipse glasses, how to figure out if your eclipse glasses are safe or fake and whether your solar panels will be affected by the total solar eclipse.

Technologies

Google’s Pixel 10A Is Coming to Japan With an Exclusive Blue Edition and Special Wallpaper

This model comes with creatively designed stickers and a special look for Pixel’s 10th anniversary.

Don’t be blue: Google is releasing an Isai blue edition of the Pixel 10A to celebrate the Android phone line’s 10th anniversary, setting it apart with its own sticker set, specialized wallpaper and custom icons. But it’ll only be available in Japan.

Announced Tuesday on the Google Japan blog, the Isai blue Pixel 10A has a dark blue look and includes bonus decorations designed in collaboration with Japan’s Heralbony art company. These include an exclusive bumper case and stickers for customization.

This edition of the Pixel 10A will arrive in Japan on May 20, following the April 14 release of the Pixel 10A in its original colors of lavender, berry, fog and obsidian. The Isai blue model costs 94,900 yen, which roughly translates to $595, and includes 256GB of storage.

This makes it slightly less expensive than the US model’s 256GB edition, but it comes with a number of fun extras at no additional cost.

Google’s creation of a country-specific model for Japan may also reflect strong sales in that market. In 2023, the IDC analytics firm (via 9to5Google) reported that the Pixel 7 series accounted for 10.7% of the country’s market share, a 527% increase from 2022.

Technologies

Can’t Wait for New Emoji? Here’s How to Create Your Own on iPhone

Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhones can create custom emoji in a few easy steps.

Apple brought new emoji to all iPhones when the company released iOS 26.4 on March 24. The new emoji include «🫍» orca, «🫪» distorted face and «🫈» hairy creature — or as we might normally call it, Sasquatch. According to Emojipedia, there are 3,953 emoji with more on the way, including a pickle. But there’s no emoji for a dog wearing pajamas, a plate with burgers and fries and many other things. But if you have Genmoji on your iPhone you can create these emoji and many more.

Apple released iOS 18.2 in 2024 and the company introduced its own emoji generator, called Genmoji, to Apple Intelligence-capable iPhones at that time. The Unicode Standard, a universal character encoding standard, is responsible for creating new emoji, and approved emoji are added to all devices once a year. With Genmoji, you don’t have to wait for new emoji to appear on your iPhone each year. You can just create them as you need them.

Read on to learn how to use Genmoji on iPhone to create your own custom emoji. Just note that only iPhones with Apple Intelligence, like the iPhone 17 lineup, can use Genmoji at this time.

Note: The new emoji may not display correctly for Apple users whose devices aren’t on a 26.4 software version.

How to make custom emoji

1. Open Messages and go into a chat.
2. Tap the plus (+) button next to your text box.
3. Tap Genmoji.

You can then type a description of an emoji into the text box near the bottom of your screen and tap the check mark on your keyboard to enter that description into Genmoji. You can also tap different suggestions and themes that are right above the text box. And with iOS 26 or later, you can also combine and use emoji to create others rather than describing a new emoji or using suggestions.

Your iPhone will generate a series of new emoji for you to pick from according to your description, and you can swipe through these new emoji. When you find the one you want, tap Add in the top right corner of your screen and the new emoji will be available to use as an emoji, tapback or a sticker. Now you don’t have to wait for the Unicode Standard to propose, create and bring new emoji to devices.

For more iOS news, here’s what to know about iOS 26.4 and iOS 26.3. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet for other tips and tricks.

Technologies

Save Over 20% on This Handy 10,000-mAh Anker Nano Power Bank

Keep your devices charged on the go with this Anker Nano power bank, now down to just $46.

We’ve just spotted the Anker Nano 45-watt portable power bank for just $46 at Amazon right now. This saves you $14 — a 23% discount on its list price. Though it’s $6 more than the lowest-ever price we saw during Black Friday, it’s still a solid discount when you take the rising cost of tech accessories into account. It also matches the lowest price we’ve seen in 2026. It comes in four colors: black, green, pink and white. They’re all on sale for the same price.

This Anker Nano portable charger weighs approximately 8.2 ounces and measures a compact 3.21×1.99×1.42 inches. Despite its small size, it has a retractable cable and supports fast charging in compatible Apple, Samsung, Google Pixel and other smartphones. It also has a large 10,000-mAh capacity and a smart display so you always know how much juice is left in your power bank.

The Nano can charge an iPhone 17 to up to 50% battery in an estimated 20 minutes, and is powerful enough to charge tablets and laptops. Need to charge your devices while charging your power bank? You can do so safely thanks to pass-through charging so you’ll never have to go without battery life.

We’ve also compiled a list of the best power banks for iPhones and for Android, in case this deal isn’t quite a fit for you.

Why this deal matters

If you travel, have a long commute time or are otherwise always on the go, a portable charger can help you keep your devices fully powered. This 45-watt Anker Nano power bank is compact, includes a loop that lets you keep track of it easily and has a built-in cable so you don’t have to keep up with extra cords. Amazon’s $14 discount makes this a solid deal for anyone looking for a compact power bank.