A Red Moon at Dawn: the Partial Lunar Eclipse of August 28, 2026

Only two weeks after the total solar eclipse in La Horra, there was another eclipse to see from Spain. In the early morning of August 28, 2026, the full Moon slid deep into the shadow of the Earth. It was a partial lunar eclipse, but a very deep one: at maximum, 93% of the Moon's diameter was inside the umbra, the dark core of the Earth's shadow. We watched it from El Espinar, at the foot of the Sierra de Guadarrama.

The Eclipse at El Espinar

These were the times of the eclipse (local time, CEST):

Start of the penumbral phase	03:24
Moon enters the umbra (start of the partial phase)	04:33
Maximum eclipse (umbral magnitude 0.93)	06:13
Moon leaves the umbra (end of the partial phase)	07:52
End of the penumbral phase	09:02

The eclipse happened as the Moon was setting in the west, with the dawn coming up behind us. The end of the partial phase was never visible for us: by then the Moon was already gone.

An Early Alarm

I had set the alarm for 4:10. The sky was clear, so I carried the telescope outside. At 4:33, just one minute before the Moon touched the umbra, everything was ready. I used the built-in interval timer of the camera, so from then on it took a picture every 10 seconds, all by itself.

My setup was the Canon EOS 80D on the TS-Optics PhotoLine 80mm refractor, on the iOptron HAZ31 mount, the same telescope and mount we used for the close-ups of the solar eclipse.

The dark bite out of the Moon quickly grew larger. At 5:15 I got my sweethearts out of bed. Together we watched more and more of the Moon disappear into the shadow. The eclipsed part wasn't black, but had a reddish colour. That red light is sunlight that has passed through the Earth's atmosphere: the air scatters away the blue light and bends the red light into the shadow. In a way, the Moon was lit by all the sunrises and sunsets on Earth at that moment.

The Moon at 5:54, twenty minutes before maximum. HDR combination of 2 s, 1/10 s and 1/25 s exposures, which shows both the red umbra and the sunlit edge.

Maximum Eclipse

At 6:13 the eclipse was at its maximum, with 93% of the Moon's diameter in the umbra. Only a thin bright edge of the Moon was still in direct sunlight. It was a beautiful sight. Lotte crawled back into bed soon after the maximum.

Before, at and after maximum: 5:04, 6:12 and 6:41.

The Moon Moves Out of the Shadow

We stayed outside for a while longer. We watched the sunlit part of the Moon slowly shift around the edge and grow bigger again. The Moon was moving through the Earth's shadow from west to east, so the shadow first came in from one side and then slid off at the top.

The path of the Moon through the Earth's shadow, from 4:39 to 6:47. The dashed line shows the edge of the umbra. Its curve gives away that the Earth is round.

At 7:00 the Moon hid behind the clouds low in the west. For us that was the signal to pack up and crawl back into bed.

The Whole Eclipse

Because the camera kept taking a picture every 10 seconds, the eclipse can be shown from start to finish in one strip, from the first contact with the umbra until the Moon disappeared.

The partial lunar eclipse from 4:32 to 6:57.

Cold Feet

When we woke up at noon, our feet were still cold. I put the telescope away while my wife took a hot bath to warm up.

The Movie

I also made a short movie of the eclipse: