AUSTIN (KXAN) — Early Tuesday morning, Central Texans had the rare opportunity to check out a total lunar eclipse and what some call a blood moon.
As the Earth lined up between the sun and the moon, Earth’s shadow completely overtook the moon — turning it from orange, to blood-red, to brown.
The red glow of the moon during the lunar eclipse comes from small amounts of light that make it through Earth’s atmosphere, all the way to the edges of the moon.
This refracted light is similar to what we see during a sunrise or sunset, and leads some to call the eclipse a blood moon.
As the sun, Earth and moon come into alignment Tuesday morning, the sky over Austin was perfectly clear, meaning people saw the eclipse well.
The partial eclipse began at 12:58 a.m. Tuesday, and the total eclipse began at 2:07 a.m.
The moon was completely covered until 3:25 a.m., and the partial eclipse continued until 4:33 a.m.
If you didn’t feel like staying up that late or waking up early, we’ll have another chance to see the moon turn red in October.