Future TechnologyA 96 Percent Lunar Eclipse Happens Early Friday
Key takeaways
- The partial phase runs 02:33 to 05:52 UTC on 28 August, deepest at 04:12 UTC
- At maximum, 96.3 percent of the Moon sits inside Earth umbra, just short of total
- The Americas get the full event, Europe and Africa see it close to moonset, Asia misses it entirely
At 04:12 UTC on Friday morning, 96.3 percent of the Moon will be sitting inside Earth shadow. Not 100 percent. That remaining sliver is the reason this partial lunar eclipse is worth an alarm.
When to look
The whole event, faint outer shadow included, runs from 01:23 to 07:01 UTC, about five and a half hours. The part you can actually see with your eyes is the partial phase: it begins at 02:33 UTC, reaches maximum at 04:12, and ends at 05:52.
For the UK, the Royal Observatory Greenwich puts the start of the visible phase at 3:33am BST with maximum at 5:12am, and roughly 93 percent of the visible disk buried in the darkest part of the shadow.
Where it is visible
The Americas get the best of it. Central and eastern parts of the United States, eastern Canada, Central America and South America see the entire event from start to finish. Europe and Africa catch it close to moonset, so a low western horizon and clear sky matter more than usual there. Across most of Asia the Moon is below the horizon while it happens.
Why 96 percent can look better than 100
In a total lunar eclipse the whole disk turns the same rusty red, which is beautiful and slightly flat. In a deep partial you get a gradient instead: heavy red at the buried edge, running out to a bright sliver still catching direct sunlight. The contrast between the two makes the colour far more obvious to the naked eye, because your vision reads the difference rather than the absolute shade.
What you need
Nothing. A lunar eclipse is safe to look at directly, unlike the total solar eclipse on 12 August that opened this eclipse season and needed certified filters. No glasses, no filters, no telescope required.
Binoculars do help, though, mostly with the colour. A cheap pair like the Celestron Cometron 7x50 gathers enough light to pull the red out of the shadowed portion that the naked eye reads as grey. Let your eyes adjust for ten minutes first and the difference is larger than the optics alone would suggest.
Friday closes an eclipse season that opened a fortnight ago. If you want something further out to look forward to, the Roman Space Telescope launches on 30 August, two days later.
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