Lunar Eclipse 2025 LIVE: Blood Moon to be visible in Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Here’s how to watch

On September 28, 2015 Universal Time (the evening of the 27th for the Americas), the Moon enters the Earth's shadow, creating a total lunar eclipse. When viewed from the Moon, as in this visualization, the Earth hides the Sun. A red ring, the sum of all Earth's sunrises and sunsets, lines the Earth's limb and casts a ruddy light on the lunar landscape. With the darkness of the eclipse, the stars come out.

The city lights of North and South America and of western Europe and Africa are visible on the night side of the Earth. The part of the Earth seen in this visualization is the part where the lunar eclipse is visible.

SOURCE: NASA

If you don’t know this one is happening, you might miss it. The Moon travels through Earth’s penumbra, or the faint outer part of its shadow. The Moon dims so slightly that it can be difficult to notice.

Source: NASA

The Moon moves into the inner part of Earth’s shadow, or the umbra. Some of the sunlight passing through Earth’s atmosphere reaches the Moon’s surface, lighting it dimly. Colors with shorter wavelengths ― the blues and violets ― scatter more easily than colors with longer wavelengths, like red and orange.

Because these longer wavelengths make it through Earth’s atmosphere, and the shorter wavelengths have scattered away, the Moon appears orangish or reddish during a lunar eclipse. The more dust or clouds in Earth’s atmosphere during the eclipse, the redder the Moon appears.

Source: NASA

The Gujarat Council on Science and Technology (GUJCOST), under the Department of Science and Technology, is organising special sky watching sessions for citizens, students, and sky enthusiasts to witness a Total Lunar Eclipse (Chandra Grahan) on the intervening night of September 7 and 8.

Regional Science Centres (RSCs) at Bhavnagar, Bhuj, Patan, and Rajkot, along with Community Science Centres (CSCs) across the state, will organise special sky-watching sessions, expert talks, and live demonstrations.

The awe-inspiring event, popularly known as the ‘Blood Moon’, will be visible across Gujarat — with the moon bathed in a copper-red glow.

These programmes will provide scientific insights into the phenomenon and inspire curiosity about the wonders of the universe among students and the general public.

Read more here

A special cosmic show is on tonight and India is one of the best places to view it from. Around 9 pm, Asia, Australia, and parts of Africa will be able to see a Blood Moon, or a total lunar eclipse, in which the moon appears red. Viewers will also be able to see the earth’s shadow creep across the lunar surface.

Why does this eclipse event cause a Blood Moon to appear? How is a Blood Moon related to the colour of the sky and of sunrises and sunsets? What can a Blood Moon tell us about the health of the earth? We explain, in 5 points.

Read our Explained piece HERE

The same phenomenon of light scattering is behind the blue colour of the sky and the red-orange glory of the sunrise and sunset. This phenomenon is called the Rayleigh scattering, named after the British physicist John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, who first explained it.

Put simply, when sunlight enters the earth’s atmosphere, it is scattered by the oxygen and nitrogen molecules. Blue light, with a shorter wavelength, scatters more, and as it comes into our eyes from all directions, the sky looks blue.

During sunrise and sunset, the sun is nearer to the horizon, and thus, light is passing through a denser layer of the atmosphere. In such a scenario, blue light is scattered too much to be visible, and only the longer-wavelength red, orange, yellow, etc. reach us.

The earth moves around the sun and the moon moves around the earth. Ever so often, the sun, moon, and the earth are in a straight line. If the earth is blocking the sun’s light to the moon, it is the moon that is being eclipsed, and that is a lunar eclipse.

If the moon is blocking the earth’s view of the sun, it is a solar eclipse. Depending on whether the earth is bang in the middle of the sun and the moon or somewhere nearabouts, the lunar eclipse can be total or partial.

When the moon is passing through the inner, darkest part of the earth’s shadow, called umbra, it appears dimmer. When it passes through the penumbra, or the outer part of the shadow, the dimming can be too small to be noticed prominently.

Unlike a solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse is safe to watch with the naked eye.