Most "blood moon" prints are a red circle on black. We wanted twenty pieces where every one tells you something true about a lunar eclipse, drawn like the plates in an old astronomy book: one luminous subject, gold hairline geometry, and a fact you can check. Here is the whole series, with the truth behind each piece.
What happens
Earth casts two shadows, a dark umbra and a pale penumbra. When the full Moon passes through the umbra it turns copper, lit only by sunlight bent through our atmosphere: every sunrise and sunset on Earth at once, falling on the Moon. These four pieces draw the mechanism.
At the Moon's distance, Earth's shadow is about 2.7 Moons across.
The red is sunlight bent through Earth's air: every sunrise and sunset on Earth at once, falling on the Moon.
Earth's atmosphere scatters blue light and bends red light into its shadow, which is what lights the eclipsed Moon.
The Moon's orbit is tilted about 5 degrees to ours, so an eclipse needs a full Moon at the exact point where the two orbits cross.
The dial and the dates
A total lunar eclipse passes seven contacts in the same order every time. Eclipse in Gold sets them for the eclipse of 26 June 2029, the deepest of the century and visible across the Americas; The Seven Contacts is the same dial with no date, for anyone who would rather keep it evergreen. The Next Red Moons lists every total eclipse to 2040; Tetrad is the run of four in 2032 and 2033; Saros is the 18-year cycle the Babylonians used to predict them.
The eclipse of 26 June 2029 is seen across the Americas, with 102 minutes of totality, the deepest of the century.
Every total lunar eclipse passes the same seven contacts, in the same order.
There are twelve total lunar eclipses from 31 December 2028 to 18 November 2040.
The tetrad of 2032 and 2033 falls on 25 April, 18 October, 14 April and 8 October; the last is a supermoon.
Eclipses repeat every 18 years, 11 days and 8 hours; the eclipse of 26 June 2029 is number 35 of 71 in Saros 130.
What you can see, if you know to look
The Danjon Scale grades how dark the eclipsed Moon goes, from almost invisible after a volcanic year to bright copper. Turquoise Band is the blue fringe ozone leaves at the shadow's edge. The Round Shadow is Aristotle's proof that the Earth is a sphere. Crater Timings is for the people who time the shadow crossing named craters.
How dark an eclipse turns depends on dust in Earth's air; after the Pinatubo eruption, the eclipse of 9 December 1992 was rated L0.
Ozone high in Earth's atmosphere absorbs orange and red light, leaving a blue fringe at the edge of the shadow.
Aristotle saw that the edge of Earth's shadow on the Moon is always curved, and reasoned that the Earth is a sphere.
Crater timings show that Earth's atmosphere makes its shadow slightly larger than geometry alone predicts.
The Moon's dark seas are plains of ancient lava; most of their names come from Riccioli's map of 1651.
The quiet ones
Midnight Eclipse is a figure on a jetty under the red Moon in Leo, the sky correct for a March night. Selenelion is the rare sight of the eclipsed Moon setting as the Sun rises. Rising Red is the Moon flattened by refraction over a harbour town. Time-Lapse is the photographer's arc of thirteen frames. The View from the Moon is what Surveyor 3 photographed in 1967. Under the Same Moon is for two people a long way apart: a lunar eclipse looks the same, at the same minute, for everyone on the night side.
The stars are placed as they stand at midnight in early March, with the eclipsed Moon in Leo beside Regulus.
Refraction lifts both the Sun and the Moon a little above the horizon, so the two can be seen together though they are exactly opposite.
Near the horizon, refraction flattens the Moon, lifting its lower edge more than its upper one.
A total lunar eclipse unfolds over several hours, slow enough to photograph frame by frame.
On 24 April 1967 Surveyor 3 photographed Earth eclipsing the Sun from the surface of the Moon.
A lunar eclipse happens at the same moment for everyone who can see the Moon.
Formats and sizes
Every piece comes as a Comfort Colors tee on Black or Pepper, a heavyweight hoodie with the artwork across the back and a small emblem on the chest, an organic cotton tote, and a gallery canvas in three sizes. Measurements are under "Size & fit" on each product page. Printed to order and shipped to the US, Canada, the UK, the EU, Australia and New Zealand (canvas to all but New Zealand).