Total Lunar Eclipse Seen from Cerro Tololo

During the night of 13 to 14 March 2025, the sky was embellished by this total lunar eclipse. 

Lunar eclipses occur when Earth is positioned between the Sun and the Moon. In this position, the Moon enters Earth’s shadow as Earth prevents the Sun’s light from reaching the Moon directly.

In this alignment, the Moon isn’t completely dark — instead, it is drenched in a red glow, as some sunlight passes through Earth’s atmosphere to reach the Moon. Rayleigh scattering of the sunlight in Earth’s atmosphere causes this ‘bloody’ color by scattering the light with shorter, bluer wavelengths more from their path than light of longer, redder wavelengths. 

NOIRLab's photo ambassador, Petr Horálek, captured the phenomenon at NSF Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. This composite image — which was selected as Astronomy Picture of the Day 15 March 2025 — records the progression of the eclipse. Another photographer standing next to Horálek captured this evocative time-lapse video of the dramatically changing light before, during and after the eclipse. The light from the full Moon is so bright that the scene resembles daylight before and after the eclipse. Several glints from Starlink and other satellites can also be seen. The totality phase of this lunar eclipse, when the Moon was completely covered by Earth’s shadow, lasted approximately 66 minutes, offering ample opportunity for observation and photography. Also see the cropped view, the Mercator view, the 360-Degree view, the fulldome view, the photosphere view, and the zoomed out view.

Horálek captured an earlier lunar eclipse from Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO), another Program of NSF NOIRLab, in 2022. The next total lunar eclipse visible from the Americas is anticipated in March 2026.