My best friend and I were quite excited to hear there was going to be a lunar eclipse on Sunday evening, and exchanged memories of previous such events we had witnessed in the past. We were especially looking forward to seeing the Blood Moon, which I don’t remember ever seeing, but my friend had. We looked up the time the moon was due to rise in our region – around a quarter to 9 pm – and noted that the eclipse would have already begun by then.

At around half-past eight we checked the sky was clear of cloud in the east, and enjoyed a pretty sunset in the west. My friend lives close to the river Rhine, so we decided to go down to the promenade and watch the sky from there. However, trees and buildings restricted our view, so we made our way to the nearby bridge, where we had a beautiful clear view both up and downstream and could savour the end of the sunset while we waited. We were still lingering there as the church clock struck the three-quarter hour. We were obviously looking a bit forlorn, and a young man jogging past us grinned, and declared, “Bad luck, seems he isn’t coming!”

On the other side of the road we noticed a group of people who were also moon-watching. We gazed towards the east, straining our eyes but saw no sign of any moonrise, just the dark outline of the hills merging into the dusky sky as twilight turned to darkness.

Very puzzled, we noticed that most of the other people had moved away. Where was the moon? Were we looking in the wrong direction? Was the performance cancelled? Should we demand our money back?

At that moment, I felt my phone buzz in my pocket and found a message from my son-in-law with a photo of the moon already quite some distance above the horizon, which appeared to have been taken from exactly the spot on the bridge where we were standing. The iPhone made it look like daylight, although in reality it was very dark.

Just as I was responding to this message, the man himself suddenly appeared at my side. He was one of the shadowy, indistinct figures that had been standing on the opposite side of the road, where he had heard and recognised our voices, and was highly amused by our perplexity.  

“Look,” he said, pointing, “There it is!”

Neither my friend nor I have good vision anymore but we looked as hard as we could and saw nothing. Then, a very faint pinpoint of light appeared. It wasn’t a red moon at all, but a black one, invisible against the black sky.

At that moment, the jogger ran back past us and called out with a laugh as he saw my son-in-law, “Oh, he’s made it after all!”

Having finally located the moon, we stood watching and waiting as the Earth’s shadow slowly moved across it revealing a slim crescent of light that grew gradually larger – but was yellow, not even orange and certainly not red.

Very disappointed, we walked back to my friend’s home where I picked up my belongings. As my son-in-law drove me home, I was able to follow the progress of the moon’s return to normal. By the time we arrived, the event was over and there, shining bright  and golden, was a typical harvest moon. It was glorious, but it was most definitely NOT RED.

It turned out that the moon had indeed been red, but that was while it was below our horizon. Switzerland is simply too far south. However, if you want some really great pics of what it looked like, you have only to go to Ilze’s website at A Day in the Life of a Latvian Mom https://latvianmom.com/2025/09/08/blood-moon/

Thank you, Ilze! Latvia was obviously the place to be last night!

The next lunar eclipse will be on 31 December 2028. If I’m still around then, I’m going to make sure I’m in a place where I can watch the entire show, even if it means a trip to Latvia!

Oh, yes! Just remembered. I have a post on this site written ten years ago, the last time I saw a lunar eclipse – including a poem you might like. I missed the red phase then, as well, but that was my own fault.