Total lunar eclipse occurs on March 3rd, 2026.
Best visibility in Northeast India and Andaman Islands.
Take a look at the best phones to capture the Blood Moon.
A partial lunar eclipse occurs when only a portion of the Moon is obscured by Earth’s shadow, but on the other hand, a total lunar eclipse is a completely different and rarer phenomenon. As it occurs when the entire Moon is covered by Earth’s shadow. Thankfully, 2026 is one of the years when we’ll get to see a total lunar eclipse, and it will also be visible from India. Without wasting much time, let’s take a detailed look at the timings and the best locations given out by the officials, while also taking a look at some of the best phones to capture the eclipse this year.
SurveyTotal Lunar Eclipse 2026: Timings
First off, let’s understand the timing of the total lunar eclipse. As per the official sources from the India Meteorological Department, the lunar eclipse will happen in multiple stages on 3rd March. They’ve shared the following timings:
- Eclipse Begins: 15:20 (3:20 PM)
- Totality Starts: 16:34 (4:34 PM)
- Totality Ends: 17:33 (5:33 PM)
- Eclipse Ends: 18:48 (6:48 PM)
Speaking of the city-wise timings, have a look at them below:
- Guwahati: 5:27 PM
- Kolkata: 5:32 PM
- Patna: 5:44 PM
- Lucknow: 6:02 PM
- Chennai: 6:15 PM
- Bhopal: 6:21 PM
- Delhi NCR: 6:22 PM
- Chandigarh: 6:27 PM
- Bengaluru: 6:28 PM
- Mumbai: 6:30 PM
- Indore: 6:35 PM
Visibility in India and the best locations
Moving on, let’s also take a look at the visibility standpoint from the Indian countries and also understand the best locations from where the total lunar eclipse will be visible.
As per the IMD, “In most places in India, the eclipse will be visible at moonrise as it concludes, except in some areas of northeastern India and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, where the end of the total phase will also be visible.”
Best phones to capture the Blood Moon
Speaking of which, given how this phenomenon happens at such a rare occurrence, you’d obviously want to click pictures of the Blood Moon. Given that not everyone carries a full-fledged DSLR/mirrorless camera system around with them, let’s take a look at some of the best phones you could use to capture the Blood Moon.
First up, the top contenders on our list are the OPPO Find X9 Pro and the Vivo X300 Pro. Both devices offer an excellent camera system across the board, while giving out very tough competition to each other. While you’re the judge of the best cameras between the two devices, speaking of why it’s worth picking these two devices, it’s because of the external lens system.
Both OPPO and Vivo sell these devices along with a separate lens kit, which comes with a dedicated case and a long, almost camera-like lens. This helps the devices to help zoom in on subjects even further, helping you get almost perfect zoom shots. The ideal camera devices to get for clicking beautiful pictures of the moon.
If you’re in the market for something simpler, then the likes of the newly released Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra could impress you. While the phone has been hyped for the newly worked-on privacy screen, let’s not forget that the camera systems have also been optimised for this generation. It supports up to 100x digital zoom, which will help you in clicking some great moon shots.
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Madhav Banka
Madhav works as a consultant at Digit, covering news, branded and feature stories. He has been writing about tech and video games since 2020. While not busy working, you'll usually find him roaming around Delhi in hopes of getting good pictures, playing video games or watching films and F1 during weekends. View Full Profile
