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Deep partial lunar eclipse — 93% of the Moon's diameter passes through Earth's umbra. Best from the Americas and west Africa.
Deepest partial lunar eclipse of 2026; 93% obscuration leaves only a thin crescent of the Moon outside Earth's umbra.
Time to greatest eclipse
Peak in your local time: 2026-08-28T04:14:04Z
Peak UTC
04:14:04
2026-08-28
Magnitude
0.930
Moon diameter
Saros
#147
20 of 71
Gamma
1.012
Shadow axis (Earth-radii)
Americas, western Europe, western Africa
Cities from the WorldClockTools clock catalog that fall in the visibility band. Each link goes to the local clock page for that city.
Editorial dossier
Historical significance
The August 28 2026 partial lunar eclipse has an umbral magnitude of 0.9319, meaning roughly 93% of the Moon's diameter enters Earth's umbra — deep enough that observers will see a thin sliver of bright lunar limb beside an otherwise blood-red disc. It is member 30 of 83 in Lunar Saros 138 and closes out a striking 18-month run of lunar shadow events that began with the total eclipse of March 14 2025 and continued through September 8 2025 and March 3 2026 — an 'almost tetrad' of consecutive deep eclipses with this near-miss as the coda.
Comparison to other eclipses
Because the Moon reaches apogee on August 22 2026 — just six days before the eclipse — its apparent diameter is among the smallest of any eclipse this decade, the geometric opposite of the supermoon eclipses of 2025. The next lunar eclipse in this Saros cycle (Saros 138) finally crosses into full totality on September 7 2044. Closer in, the next genuinely total lunar eclipse follows on December 31 2028, making the 2026-2028 stretch a quiet interlude between deep totalities.
Astrophotography context
Greatest eclipse occurs at 04:13 UTC, with the partial phase lasting 3 hours 18 minutes and the entire penumbral event spanning 5 hours 38 minutes. The eclipse is best placed over the Americas, where the Moon sits high in the sky around local midnight — roughly 70 degrees altitude over the central United States and 60 degrees over Buenos Aires at greatest eclipse. The Moon rises already in shadow over western Europe and West Africa. With 93% umbral immersion, expect a Danjon L=2 to L=3 appearance: deep red across most of the disc with a brilliant yellow-white rim on the southern limb that remains in the penumbra — a high-dynamic-range shot. Bracket from 1/250s for the bright limb to 2-4s at ISO 800 for the umbral interior.
Top viewing destinations
Sources
Eclipse data depth
Reference fields include Partial Lunar Eclipse 2026-08-28: Saros context, magnitude / obscuration, path geometry, visibility countries, and city cross-references.
Data source: NASA / JPL
Eclipse data from NASA/JPL — Fred Espenak & Jean Meeus, Five Millennium Canon of Solar Eclipses and Five Millennium Canon of Lunar Eclipses (NASA Technical Publications NASA/TP–2006-214141 and NASA/TP–2009-214172). Public domain; re-published here with attribution.
NASA page for this eclipse (path map & circumstances)eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov
Greatest eclipse: August 28, 2026 at 04:14 UTC
