Are you ready? Rare ‘Blood Moon’ Total Lunar Eclipse Thursday night to Friday morning!

Get your sleep now because you might just be up all night later this week. Across all of Canada and down through the Unites States, Central America and South America, if skies are clear, we will be retreated to a Total Lunar Eclipse—a rare ‘Blood Moon’ Total Eclipse.

I do a lot of photography, but rarely have I ventured into night photography. I loved photographing the Total Solar Eclipse in April of 2024, but find that all too often, the night skies here in southern Ontario are either too bright or too cloudy for success.

Lunar Eclipse: March 13-14, 2025

A Lunar Eclipse is different. It happens when Earth’s shadow travels across the face fo the moon, turning our Moon a deep orange-red colour. It is also a much slower process, taking about 6 hours from start to finish. That’s why I recommend getting your extra hours of sleep in now.

Here’s some background about the eclipse from Space.com. this article has some very specific timings and descriptions of what’s happening when.

We’ll start with the timings. I pulled these times from TimeAndDate.com and did my best to confirm the times across Canada.

	Pacific	Mtn	Sask	Central	Eastern	Atlantic	Nfld
Start of Penumbra	8:57pm	9:57pm	9:57pm	10:57pm	11:57pm	12:57am	1:27am
Start of Umbra	10:09pm	11:09pm	11:09pm	12:09pm	1:09am	2:09am	2:39am
Start of Totality	11:26pm	12:26am	12:26am	1:26am	2:26am	3:36am	4:06am
End of Totality	12:31am	1:31am	1:31am	2:31am	3:31am	4:31am	5:01am
End of Umbra	1:48am	2:48am	2:48am	3:48am	4:48am	5:48am	6:12am
End of Penumbra	3:00am	4:00am	4:00am	5:00am	6:00am	7:00am	7:30am

Next: equipment, composition, exposure and post-processing. You may want a shot showing the moon phases above a particular scene or landscape/cityscape, but you might also want a telephoto shot of the deep red of the moon at totality. If you have two cameras and two tripods, you could do both.

How to . . .

So, you want to photograph the Eclipse . . .

As I said, I am no expert in this field, so I have put together some resources to help you (Note: links below open in new tabs). But first, an overview from Gordon Laing:

• Practical Astrophotography: How to Photograph the March 13th Lunar Eclipse
• Photography Life: How to Photograph a Lunar Eclipse
• AstroBackyard (the most complete): How to Photograph a Lunar Eclipse
• PhotoPills video (8:53): How to Plan a Photo of the Total Lunar Eclipse of March 14th, 2025 | Step by Step Tutorial

A few key things to remember are to:

1. Make sure you charge your phone or tablet and your camera batteries!. You will likely be out for a few hours.
2. Stay safe. This is happening over night. Go with a friend or at least let someone know where you are and when you expect to be back.
3. Use a tripod. Your arms will thank you.
4. Switch your camera to spot metering mode. The spot should be over the Moon.
5. Bring and wear a small headlamp that can be set to Red/Night Vision. This will allow you to see without disrupting your night vision.
6. Keep your shutter speed as close to 1/125 as possible by adjusting the ISO. At slower shutter speeds, the moon will appear blurred—remember you and and the moon are moving relative to each other. Even if it seems to be very, very slowly, there is enough movement to demand as close to 1/125 as your ISO will allow.
7. Be prepared to change your ISO as the Eclipse evolves. The Moon will grow more and more dim, yet it is still moving, so you want to keep the shutter speed up. Remember, noise can be cleaned up in post-processing (see Raw File Optimization).
8. Head out Wednesday evening to plan where you will be to get the shots you want. Seeing things ahead of time and standing there planning for where the moon will be during the eclipse will provide greater confidence for success on the night of.

Check the weather

I’m not sure where I’ll for this. Much depends on how clear the sky forecast is. Here are some sites to check:

• Windy (online and iOS / Android) has excellent, predictive maps for weather, clouds, etc.
• ClearDarkSky.com: Clear Sky Chart
• ClearDarkSky.com: Light Pollution Map
• TheWeatherNetwork.com: Cloud Map

There are apps for that

An app you may find helpful is PhotoPills. It’s free to download and checkout before forking over any cash. I have not made much use of it other than for planning for the Total Solar Eclipse last year. However, I see they have a very good YouTube video to help you get started. Also, I noticed on the PhotoPills website a number of free downloadable “Guides to Photographing . . .”, once you’ve provided your email. They have a free 143-page Moon Photography: The Definitive Guide (2024) and, most specifically, a 108-page Lunar Eclipses 2025: The Definitive Photography Guide. To get your guide, go to the PhotoPills.com > Academy > Articles and you will see a long list of very helpful guides for a number of outdoor shooting situations.

The other app i use is The Photographer’s Ephemeris (TPE). It is both a native (Desktop / iOS) app and a Web app. I find TPE much easier to use than PhotoPills and it seems photographer John Pelletier agrees in his comparison in 2020.

So, are you ready? The countdown is on—just four days to go! Good luck and all the best of luck for clear skies!

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions, comments, or discussion about the upcoming Lunar Eclipse, be sure to add a comment.

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This work is copyright ©2025 Terry A. McDonald
and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of the author.

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