With their cell phones ready, hundreds of New Yorkers and visitors flocked to the streets to witness the sun align perfectly between the city’s iconic skyscrapers on east-west streets like 42nd Street, which cuts through Times Square.

The fiery orange orb appeared in full view at 8.12pm last night, creating a stunning sight that occurs four times a year for two days, around three to four weeks before and after the summer and winter solstices.

The phenomenon is dubbed “Manhattanhenge” after Stonehenge, the ancient site in southern England where the sun also lines up precisely during the solstices — the times when the sun seems to reach its highest or lowest point in the sky.

“It’s a beautiful event. And it’s something very New York to do,” said Jeanette Wolfson, a 47-year-old science teacher from Long Island who came to the city to snap photos for her students.

She said she would remind them that “it’s not the sun actually setting. It is the Earth spinning out of the light into the darkness.”