Photos courtesy of Marty Lazniarz.

Diehard sky-watchers and those just looking for a little beauty in the sky from the grounds of North America were pleased to see in the early morning hours of yesterday the “Blood Moon” total lunar eclipse.

Local photographer Marty Lazniarz took these two incredible photos of the eclipse, the second in a series of four that first began on April 14 through the 15 with the last landing somewhere in September of 2015. Only seven more will occur in this century alone, so the plethora of eclipses occurring consecutively over a short time period is all the more impressive.

Lunar eclipses occur when the moon, Earth, and sun align, slipping the moon’s orbit into the Earth’s shadow while peripheral light from the sun gets filtered through the Earth’s atmosphere and reflected onto the moon. This is where the rusty red color comes from.

The next eclipse, following this series, is expected occur about 20 years for now.