Late last night / very early this morning you could have (if you lived in the western hemisphere- and your skies weren't clouded) watched a not quite rare occurrence - a full lunar eclipse. This can only occur when the Sun, the earth, and its moon are in syzygy. (I love that word - and it gives me a chance to link back to this limerick - from the Greek word for "yoked together")The red coloring is the result of the sun's light passing through the earth's atmosphere and being partially refracted toward the moon - only the reddish hues get through, the rest is scattered.
There will be another couple of lunar eclipses like this in the near future (a fact that scaremongers like John Hagee have unscrupulously exploited...). If you missed last night's eclipse you can try again October 8, 2014, April 8 2015, and September 28, 2015.
And for those who appreciate a subtle mockery of scaremongers like John Hagee and the rest of his eschatological ilk here is some eschatonophobia:
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