Skywatchers across Europe, Africa and the Americas reported seeing the Moon turn dark red during the total lunar eclipse.

But others woke up in the middle of the night just to see a thick bank of cloud.

What did you see? Was it a disappointment, or did it live up to expectations?

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Your Reaction

We saw a beautiful, red moon. It was faint, looked larger than normal, and was very attractive. The colour was more orange than red. Worth stirring for!
Chris Hill, UK

Watched the eclipse periodically from 20:00-22:30 Mountain Time here in Denver, USA. The sky was completely clear and totally black, making the eclipse was really clear. It wasn't as red as I thought it was going to be, but stunning to see anyway.
Philip Drew, USA

Here in Spain we had a fantastic view. A crystal clear, albeit very cold morning meant that others and I were able to get out of bed at 4.00 and watch this event. A great experience!
John Alford, Spain

Myself and three friends saw the eclipse lying on Miami Beach. Every full moon there is a drum circle at which anyone is welcome to play. The Lunar eclipse made this one especially spectacular. During the Umbra the moon was deep orange and took on another dimension, from that of a flat disk to a perfectly round ball. Great stuff and nice drums.
Steve Boxall, Miami Beach - Florida

Up in the Lake District it was fairly cloud free. At full moon - 4:41am, the Moon was it total eclipse and a beautiful pink colour - it looked like we had been visited by a different planet for an hour - magic.
Michael Nicholson, UK

The moon was an amazing sight - About fifty students were on the beach from 3 til 5 to see it...It is something we will all remember.
Ric, UK - St Andrews, Fife

It was a beautiful crisp clear sky here 120 km east of Helsinki. It was very interesting to watch, but not as inspiring as I imagined it would be. A good start to the day, but not much more...
Gavin Cruickshank, Finland

Incredibly beautiful. Sky pitch black, not a cloud... and there it was, "the red disc".
Eduardo Martinez, Mexico

We got up at about 4.45 a.m. to see the eclipse - during totality. We had a fairly good view, interrupted by clouds. However, it wasn't red, but a rather muddy brown colour. We were a bit disappointed as people elsewhere seem to have seen it as brilliant red. Finally the cloud cover came over about half-an-hour after we started watching, so we went back to bed.
Rev'd David Dredge, Penmaenmawr, North Wales

I am a student studying astronomy at Edinburgh University and myself and some friends climbed a nearby hill in the early morning to witness the event. We had a perfectly clear sky all night and despite the cold we definately enjoyed watching another lunar eclipse after the drought since 1997. We did indeed see the moon change colour but more a light orange than a dark red. There was clearly a very dark patch where the centre of the Umbra was and this moved across the disc during the course of totality.
Richard Archibald, Scotland

I have been waiting for that eclipse for 3 years, i watched it from the start of the penumbra (2.03am) till 7.24, the end of the eclipse. Most people got up for the umbra (4.43), but I deserve more!
Jordan Taylor, England

Too cloudy to see the solar eclipse in Cornwall, then only just saw the earths shadow move over moons edge then cloud. Need to complain¿but to who? Any Ideas..?
Paul Trolley, United Kingdom

Missed it. Was working nights, and this area was overcast. But the Internet means I can view it at my leisure. I love the Internet...
John, UK

Here on the plains, we saw a sandstone orange moon with light clouds drifting by. Silent and beautiful.
Phyllis Dominguez, USA

It was wonderful in the east of Scotland. Not Bright red, though. In answer to Mark Kent - the half moon, and other phases, are decided by which side of the moon is turned to the sun. (also why it is impossible to have a new moon in the middle of the night). The earth's shadow has nothing to do with it - it is just that there is no such thing as "the dark side of the moon."
Fiona Williams, Scotland

I don't mean to sound like a fanatic, but has anyone thought of the moon turning red as a bad thing? See Revelations¿
Louis Rickie Rains, USA

During the night of the lunar eclipse, I was working as news editor for Radio Rijnmond Rotterdam. Our regional weather forecaster predicted a cloudy sky. Luckily he was wrong, so I could see it all happen just looking out of the window. It's amazing to see the shadow of the world you live on moving over the moon. At that moment I realised to be a very small part of the universe!
Martin van den Bogaerdt, Netherlands

I have a working replica of Galileo's original 13 power telescope in a wooden tube. We used it to observe the eclipse from Arizona, USA at a much more convenient time than observers in the UK. We didn't see the red hue that some reported but then again we were looking through thin, scattered clouds. We did get on-line and discuss the event with some disadvantaged observers in New England who saw only the bottom of clouds with snow falling. They were able to find some live web-cam sites showing near real time images. I've seen many eclipses before but each one is unique and I enjoyed this one. The telescope can be seen at http://www.users.uswest.net/petemanly/.
Peter L. Manly, USA

Cloud for the total eclipse of the sun in Cornwall, cloud for the meteor shower last year and now more cloud for this. Has God got it in for us Southerners?
Russell Baker, Berkshire, United Kingdom

My family and I were returning from Salt Lake City, Utah to San Antonio, Texas on a Southwest Airlines flight at the time of the eclipse. The pilot made several announcements and turned the aircraft so that passengers could get a good, clear view of the eclipse at different stages. The weather was perfectly clear all the way. Upon landing and leaving the airport at 10:10 pm (CST) we could see the full eclipse - blood red with a thin white aura. We all thought it was pretty spectacular.
Mick J. Prodger, USA

It was a magnificient sight to see. The night was bright, star-studded and exceptionally warm for a winter night. I had a huge clear picture window of the heavens above. For once in my life I realized I was on a space ship travelling through the stars. The reddish color of the moon was weird and there seem to be something magical about it. It was indeed a rare sight to see on the first days of the new millennium! Then it got pitch dark in even with the many stars shining in the sky. I wouldn't have missed the eclipse for anything in the world.
Fermin-Fermon Torres, New Mexico, USA

It looked like red, orange, and brown mixed over the state of Kansas. When it was full colour, it looked like a planet. Neat!
Dave, USA

Crystal clear skies and a superb view. It kept the kids up but the changes in colours as the eclipse developed were spectacular.
Ex Pat Paul, USA

Fog and clouds parted briefly for most of the eclipse. We saw the darkening of the moon from full to covered, but it was almost black. No red or other colours at all from here.
Paula Rose, USA

Spectacular!! From San pedro, 180 km north-west from Buenos Aires the eclipse started at 0:01 local time. I took 94 photographs of all its phases with a 8" telescope and with, a wide angle lens for a multiexpousure every 10 minutes. The temperature was very high (30 centigrade). The view trough the telescope was impressive at totality.
Eduardo Pulver, Argentina

Having recently moved to the USA, it has been a rare treat to witness so many astrological events. The total Lunar Eclipse overshadowed the meteor showers and once again restores my deep interest in the Universe, one I was happy to share with my wife and 7 year old step daughter.
Stephen Thompson, USA

It was worth getting up at 3am to witness it. To see the moon change from a brilliant white to a dusky orange on a beautiful clear night was special. It is something I and my 10 year old son will remember for some time.
Mac, Dundee

It was a perfectly clear night here in Toronto(for a change). The moon was a dull burgundy/orange. It kind of looked like mars had moved closer to the earth for a while.
Thom, Canada

I was sitting outside until 11:00 p.m. central time. It was quite a sight to see. I have never seen the moon glow red before.
April Spencer, United States

We watched the most wonderful spectacle this morning from Chester. The moon was a copper colour, and not a cloud in the sky during totality. The moon appeared as a brilliant silver-white when the shadow moved onwards.
Mike Graham, England

Fantastic view from central Scotland with very clear skies (and very cold outside!). This appeared to be brighter than previous lunar eclipses I've seen and was worth getting up in the small hours for, especially after missing some recent meteor showers due to cloud cover.
Rod Maxwell, Scotland

The sky was very clear and the moon amazingly full and bright before the eclipse. At 3 a.m. local time the moon looked reddish-brown and was half in shadow. There were more stars visible than usual. It was a treat in the middle of the night! It is a pity that not many people got up to watch it.
Cristiane, Brazil

The whole family set the alarm for 4 o'clock am. We were all really excited. Unfortunately there was a blanket of cloud. That means we have now missed the eclipse of the sun, the meteor shower and now the lunar eclipse -all because of cloud!
Sanchia Shilliday, Surrey, UK

Well it was great to see a proper eclipse as I missed the solar one due to living in California at the time. More of a reddish brown colours up here than the bright red - but still spectacular - the meteor was spotted as well. Just think - 2000 years ago the portents would have been amazing - solar eclipse in August, full moon on winter solstice and now lunar eclipse all witihn a 6 months.. what is the world coming too.
Marc Lawrence, England, Aberdeen

Here in north-eastern Denmark the sky was clear and starry at around 6.05am when we looked out. The moon was a dusky-ochre and reddish colour, very muted in its tones. We woke our two daughters (5 and 7) so they could see it. When we left for work at around 7.40 am, there was a brilliant contrast to the earlier sight. The moon was now low on the horizon, full, bright and white. I think that helped reinforce the eclipse in our daughters' memories.
Anne Fabricius, Denmark

We saw a wonderful eclipse here in Yorkshire in a really clear sky. However it was a pale orange colour rather than the dark red reported from other countries - why was this?
Simon, UK

I got up and watched it and thought it was wonderful. After the bad weather spoiling the eclipse of the sun in August this was a bonus. I had a good clear view with only the occasional cloud passing by.
Norma Hines, England

Absolutely amazing sight from Cardiff. The moon was a deep red/brown and to the west at 4 a.m. Total solar eclipse in August and now this. Whatever next ?
Geoff Sargant, United Kingdom

I saw the entire eclipse from my home outside Oalo and yes, the moon did go bright red. I also saw a meteor emerge from Ursa Majoris (the Great Bear) during totality. It was also interesting to look at the moon with binoculars during totality when faint stars could be seen next to the moon. These would not normally be visible due to the moon's brightness when not eclipsed.
David A. Wright, Norway

I woke up with flu at 4pm. Got up to check out the eclipse. It turned out that not only was my head foggy but so was Manchester. No eclipse here, but the skies had been really clear at around 11pm on Thursday evening. I was also in St. Ives in the summer for the cloudy solar eclipse. Is someone trying to tell me something?!
Mark Kreissl, UK

The moon appeared as a fuzzy reddish blob around 6am local time. Spectacular when the moon emerged from the shadow!
Mark Evans, Sweden

The views from up here in the North-East were fantastic! Not a cloud. This is the second lunar eclipse I have seen but I have a question. Given that the eclipse is caused by the earth obstructing the light from the sun reaching the moon, why don't we see the red from the atmosphere during the normal phases of the moon? At school we were taught that a half Moon, for example, is also caused by the Earth's shadow. I'm puzzled.
Mark Kent, UK

In answer to Mark Kent's question, "why don't we see the red from the atmosphere during the normal phases of the moon?" Well, the answer is that during normal phases, the direct sunlight drowns out any effects form the earth's atmosphere. During a total lunar eclipse the sunlight via earth's atmosphere is the only available light source that illuminates the moon and so we get the reddening effect.
James Butler, UK

We had high clouds in Phoenix, Arizona, so the Moon was washed in a dark peach colour. Through the telescope, it looked very much like Mars.
Michael Evans, USA

Technically speaking, my family was well-prepared to view the eclipse, armed with the new telescope my dad bought, complete with a polarising filter and all sorts of accessories. What did we see instead? Snow! And only a crummy 2 inches. Oh well, we'll get our chance again...
Tamesin Eustis, United States