Amazing pictures of this morning's selenelion blood moon have been captured framed next to a Nelson lighthouse.
Chris Porteners sent the beautiful images to 1 NEWS, saying they were taken this morning around 7:30am from Nelson's Boulder Bank.
"Unfortunately the remote shutter release packed up so not as sharp as I would have liked but still worth sharing," Mr Porteners told 1 NEWS.
A selenelion is when both the sun and moon appear just above the horizon at opposite points in the sky.
Professor Richard Easther from the University of Auckland explained to TVNZ1’s Breakfast that a selenelion occurs when the moon is in Earth’s shadow but can still be seen from Earth.
Professor Easther agreed that the occurrence sounds impossible given that the sun, Earth and moon must be in a straight line but it occurs "because the light from the sun is bent a little bit by the Earth’s atmosphere, particularly when it’s close to the horizon."
“The tricky thing is that every day the sun rises a little bit earlier and sets a little bit later that it really does.
"So that means the moon is kind of jacked up a little bit in the sky relative to where it is and the sun likewise is peeping up over the horizon a little early.
"It gives you a couple of minutes when both of them will be in the sky at the same time."
Stargazers in Southland and Otago had the best chance of seeing the celestial event few get to witness when it occurred this morning.
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