Today, May 16, is the 2022 International Day of Light, designated by UNESCO to recognize the role of light in science, art, and education. You can read more also at the optical society Optica’s webpage. I’m out of town for a niece’s graduation and wasn’t able to properly celebrate the day, but thought I could share a few of my photos of last night’s lunar eclipse, which started about 9:30 CST and ran to about midnight CST. The photos were taken using my iphone in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn as I chatted with my dad, so they’re not as impressive as my previous lunar eclipse photos (see here and here), but it’s still always fun to see new photos.

There were clouds in the Chicago area at the time the eclipse was starting, and at first I only got a peek of the moon through a few gaps.

We finally got a glimpse of totality about 20 minutes later, as the clouds dispersed!

Obviously there are severe limitations in taking eclipse photos with an iphone, but it was fun to see how nice an image I could squeak out of it!

It was oddly nice to have a brightly lit tree in the foreground with the eclipse in the background; here are a few more photos of that type.

This was my third lunar eclipse in three years, and I never get tired of them! Looking forward to the next one.

I hope you enjoyed these photos! More blogging to come in the future, and happy International Day of Light!