Is there a blood moon tonight? No
The next lunar eclipse is a penumbral eclipse on Saturday, February 20, 2027 at 6:12 PM. The next true blood moon, a total lunar eclipse, is on Sunday, December 31, 2028 at 11:51 AM, with 72 minutes of totality.
A total lunar eclipse turns the full moon copper red. The next one is on December 31, 2028.
Earth's shadow at the Moon's distance with the Moon at each stage (times for New York). The Moon moves right to left, west to east. Partly: the Moon is up for some of the eclipse (it rises or sets during it).
What a blood moon looks like
The same Moon, inside Earth's umbra. Totality usually looks copper to brick red and darker toward the centre of the shadow; how dark depends on Earth's atmosphere (the Danjon scale below). The red view is a filter on the real render, not a photograph.
The February 20, 2027 eclipse, stage by stage
- Penumbral eclipse begins
- Feb 20, 4:11 PM
- Greatest eclipse
- Feb 20, 6:12 PM
- Penumbral eclipse ends
- Feb 20, 8:13 PM
- Penumbral magnitude
- 0.930
- Moon in
- Leo, 363,275 km away
Every lunar eclipse 2026 to 2030
Times are for New York. "Visible" checks whether the Moon is above your horizon during the eclipse: the partial and total phases, or the whole event for a penumbral eclipse.
| Greatest eclipse | Type | Magnitude | Totality | Visible from you | Moon in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 3, 2026, 6:33 AM (past) | Total | 1.15 | 59 min | Partly, -1° at max | Leo |
| Aug 28, 2026, 12:12 AM (past) | Partial | 0.93 | - | Yes, 38° at max | Aquarius |
| Feb 20, 2027, 6:12 PM | Penumbral | 0.93 (pen.) | - | Partly, 6° at max | Leo |
| Jul 18, 2027, 12:02 PM | Penumbral | 0.01 (pen.) | - | No, -68° at max | Sagittarius |
| Aug 17, 2027, 3:13 AM | Penumbral | 0.55 (pen.) | - | Yes, 28° at max | Capricornus |
| Jan 11, 2028, 11:13 PM | Partial | 0.07 | - | Yes, 69° at max | Gemini |
| Jul 6, 2028, 2:19 PM | Partial | 0.40 | - | No, -66° at max | Sagittarius |
| Dec 31, 2028, 11:51 AM | Total | 1.25 | 1 h 12 min | No, -26° at max | Gemini |
| Jun 25, 2029, 11:22 PM | Total | 1.85 | 1 h 43 min | Yes, 21° at max | Sagittarius |
| Dec 20, 2029, 5:41 PM | Total | 1.12 | 55 min | Partly, 12° at max | Taurus |
| Jun 15, 2030, 2:33 PM | Partial | 0.51 | - | No, -63° at max | Ophiuchus |
| Dec 9, 2030, 5:27 PM | Penumbral | 0.95 (pen.) | - | Partly, 10° at max | Taurus |
Magnitude is the fraction of the Moon's diameter inside the umbra (for penumbral eclipses, inside the penumbra). Above 1 means a total eclipse.
The eclipses ahead, drawn to scale
Who can see the coming eclipses
Computed for eight reference cities. "Yes" means the Moon is up for the whole main phase, "Partly" that it rises or sets during it.
| Eclipse | Los Angeles | New York | London | Johannesburg | Dubai | New Delhi | Tokyo | Sydney |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 20, 2027 penumbral | No | Partly | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Partly | No |
| Aug 17, 2027 penumbral | Yes | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | Partly |
| Jan 12, 2028 partial | Yes | Yes | Yes | Edge only | Edge only | No | No | No |
| Jul 6, 2028 partial | No | No | Edge only | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Dec 31, 2028 total | Edge only | No | Partly | Partly | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Jun 26, 2029 total | Partly | Yes | Partly | Partly | Edge only | No | No | No |
Lunar eclipses in 2027: a quiet year
There is no blood moon in 2027. All three lunar eclipses are penumbral, which means the Moon passes only through the faint outer part of Earth's shadow, where the Sun is partly but not completely blocked.
- February 20, 2027 (penumbral): the best of the three. At greatest eclipse, 11:12 PM UTC, 93% of the Moon's width is inside the penumbra and its edge comes within a whisker of the umbra, so a careful observer will see a soft grey shading on one side of the Moon. It falls on the Snow Moon, the night of the Chinese Lantern Festival, and is visible from eastern North and South America around moonrise, and from Europe and Africa late at night.
- July 18, 2027 (penumbral): a technicality. The Moon grazes the penumbra by less than 1% of its width for 25 minutes. Nobody will see any change.
- August 17, 2027 (penumbral): 55% into the penumbra, a subtle dimming at best, visible from the Americas before dawn.
Between the two summer penumbral eclipses comes the main event of the 2027 eclipse season: the long total solar eclipse of August 2, 2027 across Spain, North Africa and the Middle East, a reminder that solar and lunar eclipses come in pairs two weeks apart.
January and July 2028: two partial eclipses
On January 12, 2028 the Moon dips just 7% of its diameter into the umbra for 58 minutes, a small dark bite out of the full Wolf Moon. It is well placed for North America, where it happens in the middle of the night of January 11 to 12, and for Western Europe before dawn. From New York the Moon stands 69° high at greatest eclipse.
On July 6, 2028 a deeper partial eclipse covers 40% of the Moon's diameter. It happens at 6:19 PM UTC, which puts it in the evening for East Africa and India, at night for East Asia and before dawn for Australia, and in daytime for the Americas.
The New Year's Eve 2028 total lunar eclipse
The next real blood moon arrives on December 31, 2028. The Moon enters the umbra at 3:07 PM UTC, is fully inside it from 4:15 PM to 5:28 PM UTC (72 minutes of totality), and leaves the umbra at 6:36 PM UTC. The umbral magnitude is 1.25, a fairly deep eclipse, so expect a rich red Moon in Gemini, high in the winter sky for the Northern Hemisphere.
Europe and Africa watch it on the evening of New Year's Eve, with the Moon rising in the east as the eclipse unfolds. For India, Central and East Asia it is a late-evening or midnight eclipse, and for Japan and Australia it falls in the early hours of New Year's Day 2029. The Americas miss the main event: the Moon is below the horizon there during the partial and total phases. In time zones up to UTC+7 this full moon is also the second of December 2028, making it a Blue Moon eclipsed on the last night of the year. Your own times: Sunday, December 31, 2028 at 11:51 AM.
Why the Moon turns red
During a total lunar eclipse, Earth sits exactly between the Sun and the Moon, so no sunlight should reach the Moon directly. It still glows, because Earth's atmosphere acts like a ring-shaped lens. Sunlight skimming past the edge of the planet is bent (refracted) inward into the shadow.
On the way through all that air, the light loses most of its blue to Rayleigh scattering, the same process that makes the daytime sky blue and the setting Sun orange. What gets through is red and orange. If you stood on the Moon during totality you would see Earth as a black disc ringed by a thin, brilliant red line: every sunrise and every sunset on the planet at that moment, all at once. The blood moon is that ring of sunsets projected onto the lunar surface.
The exact colour changes from eclipse to eclipse. Clean air gives a bright copper Moon; volcanic dust high in the stratosphere darkens it, sometimes almost to invisibility, as after the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. Ozone high in the atmosphere absorbs some red light and can add a turquoise tint along the edge of the umbra, visible at the start and end of totality.
The Danjon scale: how dark will it be?
Astronomers rate the darkness of a total lunar eclipse on the five-step scale introduced by French astronomer André Danjon:
| Level | What the Moon looks like at mid-totality |
|---|---|
| L0 | Very dark. The Moon is almost invisible, especially at mid-totality. |
| L1 | Dark grey or brown. Surface details are hard to make out. |
| L2 | Deep red or rust coloured, with a very dark central shadow and a brighter outer edge. |
| L3 | Brick red, often with a bright yellow or grey rim to the umbra. |
| L4 | Very bright copper red or orange, with a bluish, very bright rim. |
Most eclipses rate between L2 and L3. A deep eclipse, where the Moon passes near the centre of the umbra, tends to look darker than a shallow one. Since the darkness depends on clouds and volcanic dust in Earth's atmosphere on the night, it can only be estimated in advance, and observers report the Danjon value afterwards.
Why not every full moon is an eclipse
Every full moon sits opposite the Sun, so you might expect an eclipse every month. It does not happen because the Moon's orbit is tilted by about 5.1 degrees to Earth's orbit around the Sun. Earth's shadow at the Moon's distance is only about 1.4 degrees across for the umbra, so most months the full moon passes above or below it.
The two orbits cross at two points called nodes. An eclipse happens only when a full moon (lunar eclipse) or new moon (solar eclipse) falls close to a node. The Sun lines up with the nodes twice a year, giving two eclipse seasons about 173 days apart, each roughly 35 days long. Because the nodes slowly drift westward, the seasons come about 19 days earlier each year: from February and August in 2026 to January, July and December in 2028.
Within a season, a lunar eclipse is always about two weeks before or after a solar eclipse. The computed pairs for the coming years:
- Penumbral lunar eclipse February 20, 2027, annular solar eclipse February 6, 2027
- Penumbral lunar eclipse July 18, 2027, total solar eclipse August 2, 2027
- Penumbral lunar eclipse August 17, 2027, total solar eclipse August 2, 2027
- Partial lunar eclipse January 12, 2028, annular solar eclipse January 26, 2028
- Partial lunar eclipse July 6, 2028, total solar eclipse July 22, 2028
- Total lunar eclipse December 31, 2028, partial solar eclipse January 14, 2029
Penumbral, partial and total eclipses
Earth casts two shadows. The penumbra is the outer zone where only part of the Sun is hidden; the Moon there dims slightly, which is hard to notice until more than about two thirds of the Moon is inside it. The umbra is the dark inner cone where the Sun is completely hidden. A partial eclipse is when part of the Moon enters the umbra, leaving a dark, sharp-edged bite. A total eclipse is when the whole Moon is inside the umbra and turns red. Every total eclipse has partial phases before and after totality, and every eclipse begins and ends in the penumbra.
How to watch a lunar eclipse
No special equipment is needed and it is safe to look. Find the Moon (it is a full moon, so it rises around sunset in the east) and watch from the start of the partial phase. Binoculars show the colour and the edge of the shadow beautifully. For photos, use a tripod: the eclipsed Moon is thousands of times fainter than the full Moon, so exposures of a second or more are needed during totality. Unlike a solar eclipse, you do not need to travel: anyone on the night side of Earth sees it.
How these predictions are made
Every date, time and magnitude on this page is calculated with the open-source astronomy-engine library, and the shadow diagrams are drawn from the real positions of the Sun and Moon. We cross-checked the list against NASA's lunar eclipse catalog by Fred Espenak: all twelve eclipses from 2026 to 2030 match in type, the times of greatest eclipse agree to within about a minute, and the magnitudes agree to within 0.01. The umbra is enlarged slightly to allow for Earth's atmosphere, as eclipse tables do.
Related: Supermoon 2026 · Full moon names · Next full moon · Moon calendar 2027 · Moon calendar 2028
Questions people ask
Is there a blood moon tonight?
No. The next lunar eclipse is a penumbral one on February 20, 2027, and the next true blood moon (a total lunar eclipse) is on December 31, 2028. This page checks your own location.
When is the next blood moon?
The next total lunar eclipse is on December 31, 2028, peaking at 4:51 PM UTC with 72 minutes of totality. It is seen best from Dubai, New Delhi, Tokyo, Sydney.
Is there a lunar eclipse in 2027?
Only penumbral ones: February 20, 2027, July 18, 2027 and August 17, 2027. The February eclipse is the deepest (the Moon dips 93% of its width into the penumbra), so a soft shading on one side may be visible at maximum. The July one barely grazes the shadow and cannot be seen.
When is the penumbral lunar eclipse in February 2027?
On February 20, 2027, greatest at 11:12 PM UTC, lasting 4 h 2 min from start to end. It coincides with the Snow Moon and with the Lantern Festival.
Are there lunar eclipses in January and July 2028?
Yes, two partial eclipses. On January 12, 2028 the Moon just clips the umbra (magnitude 0.07, 58 minutes of partial phase), well placed for North America and Europe. On July 6, 2028 a deeper partial eclipse (magnitude 0.40) is visible from Asia, Australia and East Africa.
Is there a total lunar eclipse on New Year's Eve 2028?
Yes. On December 31, 2028 the Moon is totally eclipsed for 72 minutes, peaking at 4:51 PM UTC. Europe, Africa and Asia see it in the evening, Australia and East Asia on the morning of January 1, 2029. The Americas miss the partial and total phases because the Moon is below their horizon.
Why does the Moon turn red during a lunar eclipse?
Sunlight passing through Earth's atmosphere loses its blue light to scattering (the same Rayleigh scattering that makes the sky blue) and is bent into Earth's shadow. What reaches the Moon is the red and orange light of every sunrise and sunset on Earth at that moment.
Is a blood moon the same as a lunar eclipse?
Usually. "Blood moon" is a popular name for a total lunar eclipse, when the Moon turns red. It is also used for a reddish Moon near the horizon, and in some Christian prophecy writing for the 2014 to 2015 eclipse tetrad. Penumbral and most partial eclipses do not look red.
Is it safe to look at a lunar eclipse?
Yes. A lunar eclipse is just the Moon in Earth's shadow, so it is completely safe to watch with your eyes, binoculars or a telescope. It is solar eclipses that need eye protection.
Why is there not an eclipse every full moon?
The Moon's orbit is tilted about 5 degrees to Earth's orbit, so most full moons pass above or below Earth's shadow. An eclipse can only happen when a full moon falls near one of the two nodes where the orbits cross, during an eclipse season about every six months.
How long does a total lunar eclipse last?
The whole event, from first touching the penumbra to leaving it, lasts five to six hours. Totality is shorter: 59 minutes on March 3, 2026, 72 minutes on December 31, 2028, 103 minutes on June 26, 2029, 55 minutes on December 20, 2029. The maximum possible is about 1 hour 46 minutes.
Can everyone see a lunar eclipse?
Everyone on the night side of Earth, where the Moon is above the horizon, sees the same eclipse at the same moment. That is about half the planet, more if you count places where the Moon rises or sets during it. Use the table on this page to check your city.
What is the Danjon scale?
A five-step scale from L0 (very dark, the Moon almost invisible) to L4 (bright copper or orange, with a bluish rim) that describes how dark a total lunar eclipse looks. It depends mainly on how much dust and cloud is in Earth's atmosphere, so it cannot be predicted exactly.