A Deep Partial Lunar Eclipse Will Turn the Moon Coppery Red Tonight

Skywatchers across the Americas are set for the best lunar eclipse the planet will see until the end of 2028, when a deep partial eclipse sweeps over the moon late Thursday into early Friday. At its peak, roughly 96 percent of the lunar disk will sit inside Earth's dark inner shadow, leaving only a thin bright sliver uneclipsed along one edge.

According to NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio, the partial phase begins at 2:34 a.m. Universal Time on Aug. 28 — 9:23 p.m. Eastern time Thursday evening for U.S. audiences — with the moment of greatest eclipse arriving at 4:13 a.m. UTC, or roughly 12:12 a.m. Eastern time. The U.S. Naval Observatory's Lunar Eclipse Computer independently lists the same circumstances for locations across the country, and the observatory's broader eclipse calendar confirms this is the only lunar eclipse of any kind visible from the contiguous United States in 2026. NASA notes the event belongs to Saros 138, a family of eclipses that recurs every 18 years, 11 days and 8 hours; this cycle's previous eclipse fell in August 2008, and its next will not come around again until September 2044.

Why it looks red without going total

A lunar eclipse happens when the moon passes through the shadow Earth casts into space, and this month's alignment is close enough to send nearly the entire lunar disk into that shadow's darkest, inner portion, called the umbra, without quite covering it completely. The small unshaded rim keeps this from qualifying as a true "blood moon," the term reserved for total eclipses, when the whole disk reddens uniformly. Even so, NASA's eclipse-tracking page says observers should expect the shadowed portion of the moon to take on a coppery, rust-colored glow within about an hour of the partial phase beginning, once their eyes adjust to the darkness — the same phenomenon, sunlight bent and filtered red by Earth's atmosphere as it grazes the planet's edge, that colors every lunar eclipse, partial or total.

No special equipment is required. Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is entirely safe to view with the naked eye, and binoculars or a small telescope will simply sharpen the view of the shadow's edge creeping across lunar craters and maria. NASA's visibility maps show the eclipse reaching most of North and South America, Central America, western Europe, western Africa and parts of Greenland and Antarctica; Alaska and northwestern Canada largely miss it, and observers in western North America will see the moon rise already partly shadowed rather than catching the full sequence from the start. Space.com's visibility breakdown notes that observers in Africa, Europe and the eastern Pacific will catch the eclipse overnight as well, making this a rare event visible from most of the inhabited world at once.

A rare good seat for the East Coast

Because the eclipse unfolds late at night and peaks around midnight Eastern time, it falls at an unusually convenient hour for U.S. audiences on the Eastern seaboard, who will be able to watch the entire sequence — first shadow contact, deepening umbral coverage, maximum eclipse near 96 percent, and the slow retreat back to a full, bright moon — without staying up until dawn. Central and Mountain time zones get nearly as complete a view; only the Pacific coast will see the moon rise with the eclipse already in progress. Weather, as always, is the deciding factor for any individual backyard: forecasters were watching a band of clouds over parts of the Midwest and mid-Atlantic that could obscure the view in isolated pockets, though most of the eastern half of the country was expected to have clear or partly clear skies. The next chance at anything comparable for U.S. viewers is more than two years away, making Thursday night's sky the rare kind of free, no-equipment-required event that astronomers say is worth losing a little sleep over.