March 3, 2026 Total Lunar Eclipse: Visibility Map
An animated map showing where the March 3, 2026 lunar eclipse is visible. Contours mark the edge of the visibility region at eclipse contact times. The map is centered on 170°37'W, the sublunar longitude at mid-eclipse.
See also the shadow diagram and Dial-a-Moon for this eclipse.
On March 14, 2025 (the night of March 13), the Moon enters the Earth's shadow, creating a total lunar eclipse, the first visible in the Americas since March of 2025. This animation shows the region of the Earth where this eclipse is visible. This region shifts to the west during the eclipse. Observers near the edge of the visibility region may see only part of the eclipse because for them, the Moon sets (on the eastern or right-hand edge) or rises (on the western or left-hand edge) while the eclipse is happening.
Contour lines mark the edge of the visibility region at the contact times. These are the times when the Moon enters or leaves the umbra (the part of the Earth's shadow where the Sun is completely hidden) and penumbra (the part where the Sun is only partially blocked). For observers located on a contour line, the contact occurs at moonrise (west) or moonset (east).
A map showing where the March 3, 2026 lunar eclipse is visible. Contours mark the edge of the visibility region at eclipse contact times. The map is centered on 170°37'W, the sublunar longitude at mid-eclipse.
Mapa de la Tierra que muestra los lugares donde será visible el eclipse de Luna del 3 de marzo de 2026. Los contornos marcan los bordes de la región de visibilidad en las horas de contacto del eclipse. El mapa está centrado en la coordenada 170°37'W, que es la longitud sublunar en la mitad del eclipse.
The mask defining the visibility region, centered at 0° longitude.
Credits
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio
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Visualizer
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Ernie Wright
(USRA)
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Ernie Wright
(USRA)
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Translator
- Noelia Gonzalez Moreira (ADNET Systems, Inc.)
Missions
This page is related to the following missions:Related papers
Five Millennium Canon of Lunar Eclipses: -1999 to +3000
NASA/TP-2009-214172
This paper can be found at: https://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEpubs/5MCLE.html
Datasets used
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LROC WAC Color Mosaic (Natural Color Hapke Normalized WAC Mosaic) [Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter: LRO Camera]
ID: 1015This natural-color global mosaic is based on the 'Hapke normalized' mosaic from LRO's wide-angle camera. The data has been gamma corrected, white balanced, and range adjusted to more closely match human vision.
See all pages that use this dataset -
DE421 (JPL DE421)
ID: 752Planetary ephemerides
This dataset can be found at: http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/?ephemerides#planets
See all pages that use this dataset -
Earth at Night [DMSP: OLS]
ID: 286
Note: While we identify the data sets used on this page, we do not store any further details, nor the data sets themselves on our site.
Related
- ID: 5604
Visualization - ID: 5605
Visualization - ID: 5473
Visualization
Release date
This page was originally published on Tuesday, January 27, 2026.
This page was last updated on Tuesday, January 27, 2026 at 4:59 PM EST.