Looks like sky-watchers won’t be getting much sleep on Thursday night.
From late Thursday night to early Friday morning, Torontonians can witness a rare “blood moon” — a celestial event where Earth lines up between the Moon and the Sun, essentially hiding the Moon from the sunlight. As per NASA, when this happens, the only light that reaches the Moon’s surface is from the edges of the Earth’s atmosphere. The remaining light reflects onto the Moon’s surface, making the Moon appear bright red!
It’ll be the first total lunar eclipse visible across Ontario in nearly three years. According to TimeandDate, it should start at around 11:57 pm on Thursday. This moment marks when the moon first starts to move into the Earth’s shadow (the umbra), which is the lighter, outer part of the shadow where the sunlight is only partially blocked by the Earth.
At around 1:09 am, the eclipse begins as the moon starts entering the Earth’s umbra. At this point, it’ll look like dark bites are gradually being taken out of the moon as it is slowly covered by a shadow.
Totality starts at about 2:26 am — the entire moon is obscured by Earth’s shadow, and the sunlight passing through the Earth’s atmosphere bathes the moon in blood-red/orange hues!
The maximum eclipse takes place at 2:58 am — if you’re not up for watching the entire process, then set aside a few minutes to witness this phase. This is the peak of the total lunar eclipse — the moon is deepest within the Earth’s umbra, so you’ll see the most vivid blood-red colour at this time.
The total eclipse ends at around 3:31 am — you’ll notice the red colour beginning to fade as the moon starts moving out of the umbra (this part’s kind of cool too, it’ll look like dark bites are being taken out of the opposite side of the moon).
At 4:47 am, the moon will exit the Earth’s umbra — it’ll appear slightly dimmed compared to its usual brightness.
The eclipse fully ends at 6:00 am Friday morning. During this phase, the moon exits the Earth’s penumbral shadow, returning to its normal appearance!
All phases of this eclipse will be visible across North America, most of South America, parts of Europe, East Asia, and West Africa.
If you miss this total lunar eclipse, the next blood moon takes place on March 3, 2026 (and, of course, there’s tons of other stargazing events in Toronto to look out for this year!)
