Under the Kenyan stars tourists and tribal dancers looked up at the rust red "blood moon" as the east African country launched a new tourism initiative promoting the country's night skies.

When the Sun, Earth and Moon line up, the shadow cast by the planet on its satellite makes it appear an eerie, deep red colour that has astounded humans for millennia.

The phenomenon was visible late Sunday across the planet with some of those in a remote lodge in Samburu county, hundreds of miles from capital Nairobi, where the Kenya's tourism ministry and the Kenya Space Agency launched a drive to push "astro-tourism".

Foreign tourists mingled with local dancers -- wearing fantastically colourful beads and draped cloths -- as they took turns gazing through telescopes at the slowly reddening moon and

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