For the better part of this week, South Africans had one thing circled on the calendar: a deep partial lunar eclipse, set to peak at 06:12 SAST this morning with 96% of the Moon slipping into Earth’s shadow.

This morning, that wait finally ended.

Why the anticipation had been building since last week

The build-up started days ago.

South African marine engineer SOTAS first sparked excitement on TikTok on 19 August, sharing that the eclipse happened to fall on his own birthday, a full nine days before the event itself.

His post spread quickly, and by the time this week rolled around, South Africans had genuinely been counting down to it.

Part of what made the wait feel bigger: back in March, the country reportedly missed out entirely on an earlier total lunar eclipse, according to SOTAS, giving this morning the feel of a second chance nobody wanted to sleep through.

What actually determined whether the wait paid off

Whether this morning delivered came down to two things entirely outside anyone’s control: being up early enough, and having clear skies over the western horizon where the Moon was setting.

Astronomers had been clear all week that cloud cover was the only real spoiler, since the eclipse itself needed no special equipment, just an alarm clock and an open view.

Why this one was worth the wait either way

At 96% coverage, this was about as close to a full blood moon as a partial eclipse gets.

South Africa’s next chance at anything like it is a proper total lunar eclipse at the very end of 2028, more than two years from now, meaning this morning’s wait was for something genuinely rare.

It is really grand to think we spent a whole week building up to a moment that lasted just a few hours before sunrise, hey. Some very exciting feel good news.

Did the week’s anticipation pay off for you this morning, or did the alarm clock (or the clouds) get the better of you?

If you managed to snap any photos, drop them in the comments below, we’d love to see them.