Partial Eclipse of the Moon 2026

Introduction | Photos | Collages | Links

Introduction

On August 28, 2026, a partial lunar eclipse was once again visible in Germany - at least in places where the weather permitted it, which was rather rare. We briefly observed and photographed the lunar eclipse from our terrace in Mühlhausen/Kraichgau. This was shortly after the partial phase began (4:33 a.m.) and lasted only 1–2 minutes (my wife saw the eclipse a little bit longer; I had to go get the camera...). After that, everything was hidden by clouds again...

Data (Germany)

3:23 a.m.: The moon enters the Earth's penumbra
4:30 a.m.: The moon enters the Earth's umbra (beginning of the partial phase)
6:13 a.m.: Maximum eclipse
6:42 a.m.: Setting of the moon (Mühlhausen/Kraichgau)
7:53 a.m.: The moon has left the earth's umbra (end of the partial phase, below horizon)
9:03 p.m.: The moon has left the earth's penumbra (below horizon)

The next eclipse of the moon will take place at February 20/21, 2027.

Photos

This time, I was only able to take a few photos of the lunar eclipse with my Sony RX10 M4, because the moon was only visible for a short time. I would like to share four of them here. I shot freehand, used automatic exposure (program mode), and underexposed the photos. I used autofocus to set the focus. Here are the photos of the lunar eclipse with the moon in clouds:

Click the photos for larger versions!

Note that how much the moon is obscured on a photo depends on the exposure and post-processing. On these photos there is no clear-cut border here because of the clouds.

The small bright spot on the photos is the Aristarchus crater (40 km in diameter), which has rotated quite a bit to the right compared to the full moon images (where it is at the top left and the brightest spot on the moon).

Before the lunar eclipse, on August 27, 2026, shortly before midnight (11:45 p.m.), I photographed the full moon (just under 20 photos...), of which present five here:






Click the photos for larger versions!		Photo stacked from the 5 single photos, shows more details

Collages

I created two collages, four photos each, from the photos above:

Partial eclispe of the moon on August 28, 2026 at 4:33 a.m. Click the photo for a larger version!

Full moon on August 27, 2026 at about 11:45 p.m. Click the photo for a larger version!