{"id":311502,"date":"2026-03-03T20:58:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T20:58:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/311502\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T20:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T20:58:07","slug":"blood-moon-in-pictures-rare-copper-red-lunar-show-dazzles-new-zealand-sky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/311502\/","title":{"rendered":"Blood moon in pictures: Rare copper-red lunar show dazzles New Zealand sky"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img  alt=\"The peak of the eclipse, shown in a stacked image sequence.\u00a0Photo \/ Hayden Woodward\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The peak of the eclipse, shown in a stacked image sequence.\u00a0Photo \/ Hayden Woodward<\/p>\n<p class=\"NxxoOInEdsczGtg\" style=\"display:none\">Stargazers relished the clear skies last night to view the eclipse, as even the most amateur of astronomers could experience the light show \u2013 nothing but your eyes was needed to see the eclipse\u2019s effects.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"The celestial wonder captured in Huia, Auckland, by a Herald reader. Photo \/ Supplied \" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The celestial wonder captured in Huia, Auckland, by a Herald reader. Photo \/ Supplied <\/p>\n<p class=\"NxxoOInEdsczGtg\" style=\"display:none\">New Zealand was one of the few places in the world able to see the eclipse in its entire duration, Te Whatu Stardome astronomer Josh Aoraki told the Herald. <\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"The eclipse captured with a telescope. Photo \/ Ruben Black\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The eclipse captured with a telescope. Photo \/ Ruben Black<img  alt=\"A glowing red moon high in New Zealand's sky last night. Photo \/ Supplied\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>A glowing red moon high in New Zealand&#8217;s sky last night. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n<p class=\"NxxoOInEdsczGtg\" style=\"display:none\">Although it lasted almost six hours in total, beginning at 9.45pm, the best time to view the craters glowing in a copper tinge was between midnight and 1am. <\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"The moon seen during the eclipse's peak. Photo \/ Supplied\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The moon seen during the eclipse&#8217;s peak. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n<p class=\"NxxoOInEdsczGtg\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cBy about 11pm, you\u2019ll start to notice the kind of visible redness take over the disc of the moon, and then by midnight it\u2019s going to be completely within the Earth\u2019s shadow,\u201d Aoraki said yesterday. <\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"The best time to view the astrological phenomenon was between midnight and 1am. Photo \/ Supplied\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The best time to view the astrological phenomenon was between midnight and 1am. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n<p class=\"NxxoOInEdsczGtg\" style=\"display:none\">Thanks to the moon\u2019s height in the sky, the rare astronomical sight was visible just about everywhere across New Zealand. <\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"The moon seen in Waterview, Auckland. Photo \/ Sembian\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The moon seen in Waterview, Auckland. Photo \/ Sembian<img  alt=\"The lunar eclipse captured from start to finish in Hamilton. Photo \/  Julia Chinta\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The lunar eclipse captured from start to finish in Hamilton. Photo \/  Julia Chinta<\/p>\n<p>What is a blood moon?<\/p>\n<p class=\"NxxoOInEdsczGtg\" style=\"display:none\">Aoraki said the striking celestial sight is \u201cbasically\u201d light being broken up in the atmosphere.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NxxoOInEdsczGtg\" style=\"display:none\">As the Earth, sun, and moon slowly shift into near-perfect alignment, the moon will gradually appear red as the Earth blocks the sun and casts a shadow across its surface.<\/p>\n<p class=\"NxxoOInEdsczGtg\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cIf you imagine during a sunrise or a sunset, as sunlight is passing through the atmosphere, it has to go through more of it, so it gets split up into the red wavelengths and those actually get kind of refracted or bent around the Earth into the Earth\u2019s shadow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The peak of the eclipse, shown in a stacked image sequence.\u00a0Photo \/ Hayden Woodward Stargazers relished the clear&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[4250,169098,18478,2542,5676,128403,11551,78,9876,8036,117,111,139,69,1523,6507,422,8205,147,13109,1305,18916,9877,8861,171,392,9882,25809,102,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-311502","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-blood","9":"tag-copperred","10":"tag-course","11":"tag-dazzles","12":"tag-eclipse","13":"tag-graced","14":"tag-hours","15":"tag-in","16":"tag-lunar","17":"tag-moon","18":"tag-new","19":"tag-new-zealand","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-nz","22":"tag-over","23":"tag-overnight","24":"tag-pictures","25":"tag-rare","26":"tag-science","27":"tag-several","28":"tag-show","29":"tag-sight","30":"tag-skies","31":"tag-sky","32":"tag-southern","33":"tag-space","34":"tag-spectacular","35":"tag-turning","36":"tag-with","37":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}