Capturing the Eclipse

The snowy, cloudy skies had us worried, but last night turned out to be a great night to watch the lunar eclipse! You may have noticed some bright objects by the Moon. The reddish orange object to the west of the Moon was Mars. Spica, the brightest star in the constellation of Virgo the Maiden, was the bright, blueish star near the Moon.

One of our museum employees snapped this photo of the eclipse from Peoria with just his smartphone. The bright object you can see to the right of the Moon is Spica.

Image courtesy of Jason Frank

 
 

Image courtesy of Mindy Jost.

Mindy Jost of Brooklyn Park, Minnesota captured these images from about 1:17-2:45 a.m. to create this great composite of the eclipse progression. 

You can find lots of fantastic images of the eclipse online. Here is one of my favorites from a gallery on SpaceWeather.com

Image courtesy of Alberto Levy and spaceweather.com.

You can see the full gallery of eclipse images from Space Weather here.

Here is another great one from a gallery on EarthSky.org

Image courtesy of Brian Abeling and EarthSky.org. “Lunar eclipse from Des Moines, Iowa. Composite photo showing the moon disappearing and turning dark-red. Taken at the outdoor Papajohn Sculpture Park in downtown Des Moines, Iowa.,” 

You can see the full gallery of images from EarthSky.org here.

Do you have any pictures of the eclipse you would like to share? Link to your photos in the comments, or send them to rkerrigan@peoriariverfrontmuseum.org. Photos will remain the property of the photographer, but may be shared on this blog.