Blood Moon – 2026

News Overview

The yheke team is happy to bring you our first news story.

The rare phenomenon is the Blood Moon of 2026. Which only occurs every 2-3 years. The technical name for a blood moon is a Total Lunar Eclipse. A total lunar eclipse happens when the Earth blocks all the Sun’s light from reaching the Moon directly or when the moon earth and sun are in a line. It can only happen during a full Moon. During an eclipse, Earth casts two types of shadows the penumbra and the umbra.

The moon moved into the larger shadow (penumbra) at 9:45pm before entering the smaller shadow (umbra) at 11pm. This is where it will start to turn red, with the Blood Moon at its most striking red hue just past midnight when it falls completely into the umbral shadow. The Moon turns red, rather than disappearing, because of the way light interacts with the atmosphere.

The next blood moon is scheduled to occur in 2028.

We have attached a diagram below as astronomy can be confusing – Credit to NASA

Our Setup

Our setup location was in central Ostend at about 10:30pm. With the tripod, Cannon 5D camera and a 600mm lense. Taking photos from 11:00pm till 1am. Over that time we tried many camera settings, adjusting shutter speeds, aperture and iso. With mixed results. We found you could not have too longer shutter speed as the moons position changes over the time of the photo. But also could not crank the iso too high as it was a night shot. So ended up on about a 2 second shutter speed, with a 800-1600 ISO.

Will attach some of the photos below.

Gallery

Waiheke News

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Blood Moon – 2026

The Blood Moon also known as the Total Lunar Eclipse occurred in March 2026. Seen all over New Zealand and Waiheke between the hours of 9:45pm-1am.

Bus Breaks Down – 2026

At about 11:00-11:55AM on the 26th of march one of the waiheke based electric buses broke down at the Surfdale bus stop. It was then towed out of the location.

Fuel Over $4.00 – 2026

Waiheke fuel prices have crossed over $4.00 per litre for 95 octane with 91 octane sitting around $3.80 per litre. Crude oil up to over $100 USD per barrel.

Cyclone Vaianu – 2026

Cyclone Vaianu - Hits Waiheke and does almost nothing. Was winds of 20-30kmh and a few typical rain showers. Like any mild storm normally is on Waiheke.