Lunar eclipse tonight: the August 27 to 28, 2026 blood moon.

Published August 27, 2026

Lumara's live dashboard renders the Moon's actual shadow coverage as it happens, updating through the night, so you can watch how far into the umbra it has travelled without going outside. The screensaver shows the same thing full screen.

What time is the lunar eclipse tonight?

All the times below are the same instants; only the clock changes. The umbral phase, 02:33 to 05:52 UTC, is the part worth setting an alarm for. The penumbral phases at either end are a faint shading that most people cannot see at all.

Is tonight really a blood moon?

Mostly yes, and it is worth being precise about why. Blood moon is not a technical term. It describes what happens when the Moon sits inside Earth's umbra: the only sunlight reaching it has bent through Earth's atmosphere, which scatters the blue out and leaves the red, so the Moon glows a dim copper instead of going black. Every sunrise and sunset on Earth at once is what lands on it.

At 96.3% coverage almost the whole disc gets that treatment tonight. What it will not do is turn uniformly red the way a total eclipse does, because the last 3.7% stays in direct sunlight and stays far brighter than everything around it. Expect a deep red Moon with one dazzling edge.

Why is it not a total lunar eclipse?

The Moon's path tonight clips the edge of Earth's shadow instead of passing through the middle. Astronomers measure that with gamma, the distance between the Moon's centre and the shadow's axis. Tonight it is 0.4964, far enough off axis that a sliver of the northern limb misses the umbra entirely.

Where is the eclipse visible?

Europe, Africa, North America, and South America. For the central and eastern United States the Moon is above the horizon for the whole umbral phase, which is the best case anywhere tonight. On the US west coast the umbral phase starts around the time the Moon is rising, so you want a clear view low to the east. In the UK and western Europe maximum falls near dawn with the Moon low in the west, so a clear western horizon matters more than anything else.

You need no equipment. A lunar eclipse is safe to watch with your eyes, unlike a solar eclipse, and binoculars help more than a telescope because the whole disc fits in the view.

How dark does it actually get?

The umbral magnitude tonight is 0.9319, meaning the umbra covers 93.19% of the Moon's diameter at maximum. That is the figure astronomers quote. The 96.3% number is the fraction of the visible area inside the shadow, which is larger because the shadow's edge cuts a curved path across a sphere. Both describe the same event.

From first to last umbral contact the whole thing runs 3 hours 19 minutes, and the strongest colour is in the middle hour, roughly 03:40 to 04:45 UTC.

When is the next lunar eclipse?

2027 brings three, on February 20 to 21, July 18 to 19, and August 16 to 17, and all three are penumbral. A penumbral eclipse is a slight shading across the disc with no dark bite and no red, so tonight is the last dramatic lunar eclipse for a while. The 2027 full moon calendar lists them alongside every full and new moon of that year.

Tonight's eclipse belongs to saros series 138, the family of eclipses that repeats every 18 years and 11 days.

What else is in the sky tonight?

A lunar eclipse happens at full moon by definition, and this one is the Sturgeon Moon, exact at 04:18 UTC on August 28, five minutes after maximum eclipse. That is not a coincidence. An eclipse can only happen when the Sun, Earth, and Moon line up, which is what a full moon is.

A full moon usually washes out everything else in the sky, but for these few hours it dims by a factor of thousands, so the background darkens and fainter stars appear near it. For any other night, the moon phase tonight page carries the current numbers and the dashboard shows the disc live.