Look at These Epic Images of Saturday Morning's Beautiful Lunar Eclipse

While most of us were sleeping off our Friday night libations, the earth got off to an early start Saturday, slipping itself fully in front of the moon at 7:57 a.m. EDT, causing a total lunar eclipse.

If you have four and a half hours to spare, you can watch the whole thing right above. If not, check out the amazing images below.

A lunar eclipse occurs when the sun and moon are perfectly aligned and the earth gets in between them. The moon's "light" is ordinarily a reflection of the sun's light off the moon's surface. However, during a lunar eclipse, the earth gets in the way, casting its shadow over the moon instead. During such an event, the moon takes on a blood-red hue, as it did this morning, because the earth's atmosphere refracts the sunlight, letting only longer light waves (the redder part of the spectrum) bounce off its surface and onto the moon.

Saturday's celestial event started at 6:16 a.m. EDT and was at least partially visible everywhere from the U.S. East Coast to the eastern parts of Russia, including all of Asia. Alaska, New Zealand and Australia had some of the best views. It was not, however, visible from Africa, Europe and the Middle East. 

This was the third in a series of four, part of a lunar tetrad, which essentially means a total eclipse will happen every 6 months over the course of two years. The next and last one will happen on Sept. 28, 2015. It was also the shortest lunar eclipse of the 21st century, with a full shadow lasting only 4 minutes and 43 seconds.

People took to Twitter to post and repost breathtaking photos of the event from different parts of the world. We've got you covered with the best Tweet treats of the weekend.