Astronauts capture stunning views of lunar eclipse from space

Total lunar eclipse seen from space

NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Jonny Kim captured views of September's total lunar eclipse from the International Space Station. 

While Americans may have missed out on the total lunar eclipse this weekend, the astronauts living on the International Space Station did not, and they are sharing their amazing views of the show.

September’s Corn full Moon turned into a blood Moon eclipse for some when the Sun, Moon and Earth aligned, casting Earth’s shadow on the Moon. Totality was visible on Friday from Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe - but not the U.S. because of the timing.

NASA astronaut Zena Cardman wrote on X that she planned out her eclipse photos and video for over a week. The result was the stunning and trippy video above of a partial eclipse floating by the window of the ISS.

A partial eclipse seen from the International Space Station in Sept. 2025.

(Zena Cardman)

"Getting this shot as I envisioned became my white whale for more than a week," she said. "The challenge was mostly timing – finding, focusing, and tracking with a long, handheld lens during the brief few minutes we can see the moon each orbit, then leading and stabilizing the framing on a soft horizon too dark to see."

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Cardman explained that viewing the Moon from the space station isn't as easy as you'd think, being 250 miles above Earth. 

"We don’t have any up-facing windows, so we can only see the moon for a few minutes between moonrise and moonset before it disappears above the ISS or below the horizon," she said.

Ultimately, her vision came to life, and of the 16 moonsets the astronauts see every day, this one was worth it. 

"What a relief to finally catch it. 400mm plus 1.4x and 2x converter, 1/50s, f/22, ISO 2000, luck, and stubbornness," Cardman said.

The video shows some distortion and coloring on the Moon from atmospheric refraction and light scattering. 

Japanese Exploration Agency (JAXA) Astronaut Kimiya Yui borrowed the view from the Russian module to capture more of the red glow during the Blood Moon eclipse. 

He promised to share some Japanese cuisine as a thank you to the Russian cosmonauts.

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Meanwhile, NASA astronaut Jonny Kim captured a few glimpses of partial eclipse phases.

Kim said the astronauts only had a short window to view the lunar eclipse because parts of the space station blocked the view.