Why eclipses come in seasons rather than at random
The Moon's orbit is tilted about five degrees to the plane of Earth's orbit. Most months it passes above or below the line joining Earth and Sun, so at new moon there is no eclipse and at full moon there is none either. The two places where the orbits intersect are the lunar nodes, and an eclipse can only happen when a new or full moon occurs near one of them.
The nodes drift backwards through the zodiac, completing a circuit in a little over eighteen and a half years. That drift means the Sun passes them roughly every 173 days rather than every six months, which is why eclipse seasons creep steadily earlier in the calendar. Each season lasts around a month and produces two eclipses, occasionally three.
Because the geometry repeats, so do the eclipses. The saros cycle of 6,585.32 days, about eighteen years and eleven days, brings back an eclipse of almost identical character shifted about a third of the way round the planet. That fractional third of a day is why the same saros returns to the same longitude only after three cycles.
Reading the type column
A total solar eclipse means the Moon covers the Sun's disc completely, which happens only along a narrow track a few hundred kilometres wide. An annular eclipse happens when the Moon is near apogee and appears too small to cover the disc, leaving a ring of light. A hybrid switches between the two along its track because of the curvature of the Earth. A partial eclipse never becomes either.
Lunar eclipses divide differently. A total lunar eclipse puts the whole Moon inside Earth's umbra and turns it the colour of every sunrise on the planet at once. A partial puts some of it there. A penumbral only reaches the outer shadow and is often difficult to notice at all, which is worth knowing before you plan an evening around one.
The obscuration figure is the fraction of the relevant disc covered at greatest eclipse.
What the sign column means and what it does not
The sign shown is the zodiacal position of the eclipsed body at peak: the Sun's sign for a solar eclipse, the Moon's for a lunar one. In practice a solar eclipse falls in the same sign as the new moon that produces it, and a lunar eclipse sits opposite the Sun.
Astrologically an eclipse is read as a new or full moon with more weight behind it, and the degree matters more than usual because the interest is in whether it lands on something in a birth chart. A degree in the table that sits within a degree or two of one of your own placements is the case worth looking at. A degree that touches nothing is a nice thing to look at in the sky and no more.
Nothing on this page says an eclipse will cause anything. It says when they are, where they are and what they touch, which is the part that can be checked.
Visibility is a separate question from occurrence
The peak times here are global instants. Whether you can see the eclipse from your garden depends on whether the Moon or Sun is above your horizon at that moment and, for solar eclipses, whether you are near the track.
The latitude and longitude given for solar eclipses is the point of greatest eclipse, the place where the axis of the Moon's shadow passes closest to Earth's centre. Totality runs along a path through that point. Lunar eclipses have no such track: everyone on the night side of the Earth sees the same thing at the same time, which is why they feel more common even though they are not.
Questions people ask about this
How many eclipses happen in a year?
Between four and seven, with four being the usual case and seven very rare. The count depends on how the eclipse seasons fall relative to the calendar year, which is why some years look busy and the next looks empty.
Why is there not an eclipse every month?
Because the Moon's orbit is tilted about five degrees, so at most new and full moons the shadow misses. An eclipse needs the alignment to happen near one of the two points where the orbital planes cross.
Do eclipses matter in a birth chart?
The astrological convention is that they matter when the degree contacts something in the chart closely, within about a degree or two, and that they are unremarkable otherwise. You can check that directly by comparing the degrees in the table with your own placements.
What does it mean when an eclipse falls in my sign?
It means the Sun or Moon was in that thirty degree arc at the moment of the eclipse. Whether it touches your chart depends on the exact degree, not the sign, and a solar eclipse at two degrees of Leo has little to do with a Leo Sun at twenty seven degrees.
How far in advance can eclipse dates be calculated?
Thousands of years in either direction. The mechanics are well determined and eclipse prediction is one of the oldest accurate things astronomy does. The limiting factor over very long spans is uncertainty in the slowing of Earth's rotation, which affects where the shadow lands rather than when.
What is a blood moon?
A popular name for a total lunar eclipse. The Moon turns red because the only light reaching it is sunlight refracted through Earth's atmosphere, which filters out the blue. It is not a separate class of event and it appears in the table as a total lunar eclipse.