March 3 total lunar eclipse

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Mark Wagner

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Feb 26, 2026, 7:20:15 PM (14 days ago) Feb 26
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Last such event for 3 years if press is correct.

We in the Bay area will see it begin shortly after 3am in the southwestern sky, lasting a deep red (?) 58 minutes during totality.

Maybe we'll get a treat.

Ted Hauter

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Feb 26, 2026, 10:58:30 PM (13 days ago) Feb 26
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Totality last from 305am to 405am. Definitely for the retired crowd.

I do wonder if will be total as last several, while amazing, have not been a deep red maybe 99 percent.

When the moon is total the sky becomes much darker and a more dramatic event. In either case, a must see for sure.

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Muriel Dulieu

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Mar 3, 2026, 6:33:45 AM (9 days ago) Mar 3
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I got out at 2.55 am for the blood moon. Took the first two pictures with my iPhone. Started setting up my SeeStar. I had plans for the camera as well. And…the clouds came in, just on time. 

-Muriel

image0.jpegimage1.jpegimage2.jpeg


On Feb 26, 2026, at 7:58 PM, Ted Hauter <thgo...@gmail.com> wrote:



Muriel Dulieu

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Mar 3, 2026, 7:03:40 AM (9 days ago) Mar 3
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A quick appearance just before 4 am.

image0.jpegimage1.jpeg

-Muriel


On Mar 3, 2026, at 3:33 AM, Muriel Dulieu <mdu...@gmail.com> wrote:


I got out at 2.55 am for the blood moon. Took the first two pictures with my iPhone. Started setting up my SeeStar. I had plans for the camera as well. And…the clouds came in, just on time. 

-Muriel

<image0.jpeg>
<image1.jpeg>

Philippe Fossier

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Mar 3, 2026, 7:16:45 AM (9 days ago) Mar 3
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image1.jpeg
image0.jpeg

David Kirjassoff

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Mar 3, 2026, 7:51:09 AM (9 days ago) Mar 3
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Nice shots Muriel, especially the lucky last.  I was all set up to do a full timelapse with my refractor but the clouds rolled in and skunked me just near totality.

David
image0.jpeg
Sent from my iPad

On Mar 3, 2026, at 4:03 AM, Muriel Dulieu <mdu...@gmail.com> wrote:

A quick appearance just before 4 am.

<image0.jpeg>
<image1.jpeg>

Surya Rao

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Mar 3, 2026, 8:35:10 AM (9 days ago) Mar 3
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Muriel, those are some really nice pictures! Here in San Jose, we were under a thick blanket of clouds.

Surya 

Ted Hauter

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Mar 3, 2026, 10:13:47 AM (9 days ago) Mar 3
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Excellent!

Satellite imagery had CA completely clouded out.🥲😆

Anything 3am around here the odds drop to % in the single digit.

Dan Durkin

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Mar 3, 2026, 11:57:38 AM (9 days ago) Mar 3
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In Corte Madera, I was fortunate to have clear skies for the duration of the eclipse. The one group of clouds I saw passed to the north. Around 3:15AM, it did suddenly get dewy. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The eclipsed Moon looked especially delightful with 8x binoculars.

Photos are with a handheld iPhone to a TeleVue 85 with 13 Nagler (46x). The photos have been corrected for left-right reversal.

1:30AM Moon has entered the penumbra. Oceanus Procellarum at 10 o'clock was visibly darker than usual.
IMG_0674.jpeg

2:04AM Moon has entered the umbra.
IMG_0677.jpeg

2:39AM Visually, I am seeing reddish areas in the darkened areas (the iPhone does not catch this).
IMG_0678.jpeg

3:08AM Totality has been achieved. The Moon is passing below the center of the umbra, which is why the top appears darker and redder. Please note that this image in reality is darker than the previous ones and the iPhone has compensated.
IMG_0680.jpeg

Ted Hauter

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Mar 3, 2026, 12:10:26 PM (9 days ago) Mar 3
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Wonderful!

It appears to be another 99% totality. 

It's been at least 15 years since a full red one I believe. 

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miloc...@gmail.com

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Mar 3, 2026, 5:42:17 PM (9 days ago) Mar 3
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I seem to recall taking this shot from my driveway in 2018.

JimB

Moon.jpg

alex.k...@gmail.com

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Mar 3, 2026, 7:03:43 PM (9 days ago) Mar 3
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At the Albany waterfront we had two very decent clear sky windows, one for the first half of the partial phases (well, prob even earlier as I was out only at 2am), another for the second half and for almost the entire totality. 
Linking the roughly cleaned vid of the latter window taken by SeeStar S50 (2sec timelapse, 17ms shutter, 400 gain, 51ms later for totality). https://youtu.be/K6pALM05SJE
It was quite a dark totality comparing to prior ~ 10 years of them, but not quite that red as imaged (less contrast and more bluish, I'll try to reproduce the visual fidelity as seen from binocs later). 
At the end I left intact few seconds of the frame jitter caused by the SeeStar Moon tracking failures in the passing clouds, just to demo the algorithm problem on another forum.
All in all, it was worth getting up early. The night was not cold, nor windy.

Rod Brown

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Mar 4, 2026, 11:40:12 AM (8 days ago) Mar 4
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After weeks of cloudy evenings here in Nevada County, the skies cleared just in time for the lunar eclipse. Three of us from our local club went out to my regular spot in the foothills to view the event. For me, someone who is not a sketcher or photographer and normally moves from one object to another every few minutes, it was a good experience to sit and watch one object and its view evolve over a few hours. Very satisfying.

Rod

Ted Hauter

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Mar 4, 2026, 7:41:09 PM (8 days ago) Mar 4
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Nice to hear Rod,

The eclipse here was clouded out. Always clouds up about 3 or 4am, clear by most sun rises.

It's so frustrating the more you want to see it. I find comfort in eclipse past. Especially a cold one one year about the same timeframe that looked so alien in a sky like outer space.



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