A reddened "blood moon" delighted skygazers across Northland and New Zealand on Wednesday night.
The blood moon, where the moon appears red, is caused by a lunar eclipse. It started around 10.20pm on Wednesday.
When the eclipse began, it looked like a bite had been taken out of the moon and by about 11.15pm it was just a sliver of white on one side.
Just before 11.30pm, the white light disappeared and the moon became pinky-red colour.
The bronzy-red colour occurred because the moon passed directly behind the Earth, into its shadow. Such an eclipse occurs only when the sun, Earth and moon are closely aligned, with the Earth in the middle, and only during a full moon. The next blood moon will be in January 2018.
How she did it
Kaitaia artist Michelle Beer took the shot above on an old Canon 20D with a 75-300mm zoom lens.
"Right after this shot was taken a blanket of cloud rolled in and covered the moon and stars for the rest of the eclipse, so I was really blessed to see it ... "