Did you happen to catch the lunar eclipse last night? Don’t worry if you missed it, you’re probably not alone. Clocking in at under 27 minutes marks this eclipse as one of the fastest of the century.

Known as a partial lunar eclipse, just under 1.5% of the lunar limb was affected by the Earth’s shadow making it a very shallow eclipse, though you wouldn’t have guessed from some of the stunning photos that have appeared around the world.

If you missed out last night, don’t despair, as this was just the first of a number of eclipses expected during 2013.

Did you know?

• The full moon of April is known as the Pink Moon and named for the wild phlox grass – one of the earliest flowers of the spring (in the northern Hemisphere).
• The alignment of the Moon, Earth and Sun is known as a ‘syzygy’. For the logophiles out there: this is the last word to appear under ‘s’ in the dictionary, and it will get you a triple-letter score in Scrabble.