'Blood Moon' Lunar Eclipse Photos & Videos: Watch Time Lapse

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Apr 06, 2015 10:06 AM EDT

The Easter weekend was highlighted by a rare "Blood Moon" that lit up the night sky on April 4. According to experts, this particular Blood Moon is the third of four in a sequence called a tetrad.  

CNN states that the first blood moon occurred on April 5, 2014, while the second was seen on October 23, 2014. NASA has predicted that the last of the tetrad will probably appear on September 28 of this year.  

According to the Huffington Post, the Blood Moon was only seen for a couple minutes over North America. NASA has stated that it is the shortest eclipse of the century.  

"The celestial body took on a burnt-orange tint in the minutes before, during, and after the total exlipse, giving the appearance that earns total eclipses the 'blood moon' nickname," CNN noted.

The site also says that only a partial view of the total eclipse was seen by people in the Eastern part of North America, before it set. While the West Coast in the U.S. to Australia, a full view of the blood moon was visible.  

CNN explains that a Blood Moon occurs when the Earth, sun, and moon align during a lunar eclipse, with the Earth in the middle. The sun creates a shadow of the Earth during the alignment and covers the moon. The moon turns red during the eclipse instead of blue "because Earth's atmosphere is filtering out most of the blue light." 

Meanwhile, a Blood Moon tetrad features two total lunar eclipses between six full moons. Fox 17 explains that a lunar tetrad is very rare because not all eclipses are full. The site states that statistically speaking only one out of three eclipses is a total eclipse. 

Pictures of the Blood Moon were posted on social media, including Twitter. One tweet by NASA Marshall News read, "And this one shows the red color even brighter!..."

Another tweet by Mark Tarello states, "Lunar Eclipse this Saturday morning near the skyline of #Toronto, Canada. Photo: Felix Zai #LunarEclipse #Blood Moon."

A time lapse video of the April 4 Blood Moon can also be seen below. Questions about the eclipse from Twitter were also answered on the video.

 

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