By Ben Brumfield

(CNN) — Prophecy loves signs from the heavens, and they will deliver Tuesday with a moonlight spectacle.

What will happen could sound sort of like this:

The moon will turn to blood as it aligns with Earth and sun
Then do so thrice more ere a year and a half is done,
‘Tis not the herald of the apocalypses
Just the first of four total lunar eclipses.

In other words, get ready for an unusually beautiful moon to grace the night skies next week. There will be a total lunar eclipse Tuesday that will turn the moon a burnt reddish orange, NASA says.

It’s called a blood moon, and this one is just the first in a series of four consecutive total eclipses.

Within a year and a half, North America will be able to see a blood moon a total of four times. The moon takes on this color during the eclipse as it passes through the Earth’s shadow, which is the color of a desert sunset.

The four blood moons will occur in roughly six-month intervals on the following dates: April 15, 2014; October 8, 2014; April 4, 2015, and September 28, 2015.

With that frequency, one might be misled into thinking that they are commonplace.

There are about two lunar eclipses per year, NASA says. Some of them — penumbral eclipses — are so subtle, they are vaguely visible and go greatly unnoticed.

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