San Francisco night owls got a special treat on Tuesday as the fog and cloud cover cleared out just enough that a rare “blood moon” was visible in parts of the city. Photos from across the city show the moon turning a deep-red color as the Earth’s shadow passed over the lunar surface just after 3 a.m.
Instagram user Kyle Boliba posted a time-lapse video outside Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, which showed the moon peeking out behind the fog just as it turned dark red.
The “blood moon,” or full lunar eclipse, occurs when the Earth’s shadow is fully cast between the moon and the sun. The dark red color is the result of the light passing through the Earth’s atmosphere. This acts as a sort of prism, scattering the light and causing the moon’s surface to appear red. The lunar eclipse was visible by over 3 billion people across the globe, according to Space.com.
San Francisco’s ever-present fog and low cloud cover mean that residents often miss out on astronomical events, such as 2025’s supermoon and a rare view of the aurora borealis last November.
Another video posted on Reddit appears to show the blood red moon hovering above the Golden Gate bridge.
A full lunar eclipse is relatively rare, and the next one will not arrive until 2028.
The full blood moon rises over California Street between buildings, as called “California Henge,” in San Francisco on March 2, 2026. (Anadolu/Getty Images)
If you slept through the rise of the blood moon, the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles posted its stream of the eclipse as it happened overnight.
A video from Rohnert Park also captured the blood moon setting in the Bay Area on Tuesday.
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This article originally published at Blood moon lunar eclipse visible in San Francisco as fog clears just in time.