UK Partial Lunar Eclipse 2026: Date, Time, 93% Coverage & Where to See It

The UK gets one lunar eclipse in 2026, and it is a good one. In the early hours of Friday 28 August, the Moon slides almost entirely into the Earth’s shadow — deep enough that only a thin bright rim survives.

The catch is the hour and the height. Maximum comes at 5.12am BST, by which point the Moon is low in the west-southwest and sinking towards a brightening sky. Get the direction wrong, or pick a spot with anything on the western horizon, and you will miss it entirely.

When is the 2026 partial lunar eclipse in the UK?

It runs from 2.23am to 6.51am BST on Friday 28 August, with maximum at 5.12am. Those times are the same in Penzance and in Lerwick — a lunar eclipse is the Earth’s shadow falling on the Moon, so everyone on the night side sees it happen at the same instant.

The two hours in the middle are the ones that matter. Before 3.33am the Moon only dims slightly, which is hard to notice unless you are watching for it, and the whole event does not formally finish until 8.01am — long after the Moon has gone.

What does “93% coverage” actually mean?

It is the share of the Moon’s width, not its face. At maximum, 93% of the Moon’s diameter is inside the umbra — the dark central part of the Earth’s shadow. Measured by area instead, the shaded portion is larger still, at 96.2%.

Both figures describe the same picture; they just measure it differently. A circle carries very little of its area out at the rim, so once a shadow has swallowed 93% of the width, it has already taken 96% of the visible face. The sliver left in sunlight is 7% of the Moon’s width and only 3.8% of its face.

Neither number means totality. Nowhere on Earth sees a total lunar eclipse on this date — the Moon’s northern edge stays just outside the umbra all the way through.

Where in the UK can you see it?

Everywhere, at the same times. The Royal Observatory Greenwich puts it plainly: unlike a solar eclipse, the whole of the British Isles sees the same percentage of the Moon in shadow. What differs from place to place is how high the Moon sits at maximum, and how long you have before it sets.

The spread is small. Belfast, the most westerly of the eight, holds the Moon almost twenty minutes longer than Newcastle, and Cardiff sits it two and a half degrees higher than Newcastle at maximum. Nowhere in the UK is meaningfully better than anywhere else — your horizon matters far more than your postcode.

Why does the Moon set before the eclipse ends?

Because the eclipse is happening as the Moon is already on its way down. It is full, so it sets at about the same time the Sun rises, and maximum eclipse falls barely an hour before that.

At 3.33am, when the first bite appears, the Moon is around 17–21° up — a comfortable height, roughly two fists at arm’s length above a flat horizon. By maximum it has dropped to 7–10°, which is one fist. Then it goes.

The last stages happen below the horizon everywhere in the country. The partial phase does not end until 6.51am, and the latest UK moonset is Belfast’s at 6.34am. Whatever you see, you will not see the Moon come back out of the shadow.

Dawn works against you at the same time. First light arrives between 5.26am and 5.45am depending on where you are, so maximum at 5.12am lands in the last properly dark stretch of the night — narrowly, and only just.

Which way should you look?

West-southwest, and low. At maximum the Moon sits on a bearing between 237° and 242° from the eight cities above, and by moonset it has swung round to roughly 253°–255°. In practice that means the Moon tracks right and downwards through the eclipse.

The Royal Observatory’s advice is to find a high vantage point with a clear view towards the south-western horizon. At 8° above the horizon, a line of houses two streets away is enough to block the Moon completely, and so is a low ridge or a stand of trees. A hilltop, a coastal path facing west, or an upstairs window on the right side of the building will all do better than a garden.

Do you need eclipse glasses for a lunar eclipse?

No. The Royal Observatory Greenwich states it directly: no special glasses are required, and watching it is as safe as looking at the full Moon. That is the fundamental difference between a lunar and a solar eclipse — here you are looking at reflected moonlight, not at the Sun.

Binoculars are worth having, though, purely because the Moon will be low and small in a big sky. Nothing is required beyond your eyes and a clear view.

Will the Moon turn red?

The shadowed part may look reddish or coppery, which is where the popular term “blood moon” comes from. Sunlight bends through the Earth’s atmosphere and is scattered on the way, and the light that reaches the Moon is what is left after that — the same physics that reddens a sunset.

This one comes with a caveat that a total eclipse does not have. Because 7% of the Moon’s width stays in direct sunlight, there is a brilliantly lit rim right next to the shadowed part for the whole eclipse. That bright edge is far brighter than the coppery region beside it, so the colour tends to read best in photographs and through binoculars rather than to the naked eye.

What is the weather forecast for the eclipse?

Unsettled, on the Met Office’s current outlook — but five days out that is a tendency, not a forecast. Its long-range text for 27 August to 5 September, issued at 3am on 23 August, reads: “A relatively unsettled start to this period, as showers or longer spells of rain are possible across many parts of the UK. Some heavy bursts and thunderstorms are likely at times.”

That is not encouraging, and it is also not specific enough to write off any particular hour in any particular place. Check a local forecast the evening before. Given the Moon will be at 8°, low cloud on the western horizon will matter more to you than the sky overhead.

When is the next lunar eclipse visible from the UK?

Not for another eighteen months. The next one visible from London is a penumbral eclipse on 20–21 February 2027, which is the faint kind where the Moon merely dims. For another partial you wait until 12 January 2028.

That is what makes this one worth setting an alarm for. There was a second lunar eclipse in 2026 — a total one on 3 March — but NASA’s visibility list for it covers eastern Asia, Australia, the Pacific and the Americas, and not Europe. From the UK, 28 August is the only lunar eclipse of the year.

It also comes just over a fortnight after the 12 August total solar eclipse , and that pairing is not a coincidence: solar and lunar eclipses come in pairs about two weeks apart, at opposite ends of the same alignment.

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