A total lunar eclipse happens when the Moon passes through the long shadow cast by our Earth and is blocked by the Earth from the sunlight that normally illuminates its surface.
The 2011 Lunar Eclipse happened today, Saturday morning, and was best seen overnight, as one could guess. This is the case in Australia according to SkyNews, where the full moon moved into earth’s shadow at midnight there, and was best seen from Perth. Moreover, this rare happening is not due to pass this way again until 2014.
In Western Canada, onlookers saw it at 6:06 a.m. Pacific Time, and lasted 51 minutes, with the moon turning – or appearing to turn to – an orange-red color.