Thursday night the Earth's shadow swallows 93 percent of the moon over South Knoxville
It starts at 9:23 and peaks at 12:12 Friday morning, with the moon high in the south-southeast and the covered part gone the color of an old penny. No ticket, no drive, no equipment — a driveway will do it.
Thursday is the full moon, and Thursday night the Earth gets between it and the sun. Not all the way — this is a partial eclipse — but very nearly: at maximum, 93 percent of the moon sits inside the dark shadow, with one thin bright rind left along an edge and everything else gone the color of an old penny.
- Thu Aug 27 · 9:23 PM
- The outer shadow touches the moon — subtle
- Thu Aug 27 · 10:33 PM
- The dark shadow arrives and the color starts to turn
- Fri Aug 28 · 12:12 AM
- Maximum — 93% covered, 40° up in the south-southeast
- Fri Aug 28 · 1:51 AM
- The dark shadow lets go
- Fri Aug 28 · 3:01 AM
- Over
- What you need
- Nothing. No glasses, no filter — binoculars help
- Cost
- Free, from anywhere in SoKno
The timing, in Knoxville time
At 9:23 the faint outer shadow touches the moon's face. Most people won't notice; it just looks like the moon has gone slightly grubby. The part worth staying up for starts at 10:33, when the real shadow arrives — from there a dark bite grows across the disk for an hour and a half straight. Maximum is 12:12 Friday morning. Then it reverses: clear of the dark shadow at 1:51, finished entirely at 3:01.
Where to stand
Nowhere special, and that's exactly why this is at the top of the page. At maximum the moon sits forty degrees up — a little under halfway between the horizon and straight overhead — so you don't need a ridge, a clearing, a boat, or a plan. Any patch of open sky to the south-southeast works: a driveway, a back step, the middle of your own street. A lunar eclipse is the safe kind, so there is nothing to wear over your eyes. Binoculars make the color better if you have a pair in a drawer.
The honest caveat
As of Tuesday the forecast for Thursday night is mostly cloudy with light showers and a low near 72, and historically this date in Knoxville has been cloudy a little more than half the time. So no promises. But it costs five minutes on the porch to find out, and the next eclipse anything like this one from here is January 2028.
