Moon bites sun: Your photos

The moon took a small bite out of the sun in a partial solar eclipse on Thursday. People throughout the U.S. shared their photos with CNN iReport. Georgianne Nienaber was worried about the thick clouds hanging over her home in Sanibel Island, Florida. For a 20-minute window, the clouds parted and she was able to photograph the event.

"The moon took a little chunk out of the sun, like

Greg Hogan attached his camera to a telescope and watched the partial solar eclipse from Warner Robins, Georgia, on Thursday. It "was incredible to watch the moon come in sight and over the sun slowly as the sun set," he said.

John Powell photographed the eclipsed sun, which looked more like a crescent moon, hanging over Badlands National Park in South Dakota.

For more than an hour, engineer Nicholas Koehne waited to photograph the partial solar eclipse in Topeka, Kansas. Using a solar filter, he was able to capture several images of the event.

The partial eclipse looms behind wispy clouds and a string of power lines in Topeka, Kansas.

Longtime astrophotography fan Hasnain Shabbir tried his hand at photographing the partial solar eclipse outside his home in Round Rock, Texas."I don't miss a chance to capture a photo and share my insights with the world," he said.

Thursday's event was Jean-Francois Gout's fifth solar eclipse. He spent so long driving to find a spot to photograph it that he wound up in the next state. He shot this photo from Lake Logan in Ohio.

Gout attached his camera to a telescope to create this up-close shot of the partial solar eclipse.

• Thursday's partial eclipse reached its peak at 5:45 p.m. ET


• People in the Central Time zone got the best view, NASA says


• NASA: Protect your eyes with special filters or indirect methods when viewing any eclipse


• Did you catch the eclipse? Share your best photos with CNN iReport

(CNN) -- If there's one thing we've learned about the CNN iReport community, it's that you all love to capture celestial events.

Thursday's partial solar eclipse was no exception.

The eclipse reached its height at 5:45 p.m. ET, NASA said, meaning the eastern half of the country should have gotten a view before the backdrop of golden twilight hues. People living in the Central Time Zone had the best view.

Paulo Solano combined three different exposures using HDR photography to create this beautiful image from Van Nuys, California, of the October 8 lunar eclipse. The second "blood moon" of the year could be witnessed throughout North America, as well as over most of the Pacific and much of East Asia. If you missed your chance to see it, don't despair. Two more eclipses are coming in 2015, on April 4 and September 28.

From her yard in Augusta, Ohio, Jennifer Kiko shot this amber moon with some trees in the foreground early Wednesday.

There's a nice juxtaposition between the blood moon and a building in Los Angeles that made Animesh Ray wonder, "Which is better?" "Perhaps it is not our place to compare but only to contemplate their mutual synergy, one enhancing the other," he said.

Bob Cozzi got up early to see the blood moon over North Aurora, Illinois, at 6 a.m. on Wednesday. "With the clear sky, it feels like you're on another planet," Cozzi said.

It was the first time Nicholas Scott Page from Dayton, Washington, saw the blood moon."I stayed up in April to try and catch the last eclipse but cloud cover spoiled my plans to photograph it," he said.

On the other side of the world, the blood moon appeared at night. Hayden Himburg saw the eclipse from Dunedin, New Zealand, Wednesday just before midnight. "I have seen previous blood moons, and they are always impressive," he said.

The lunar eclipse hovers over Marie Diaz's home in Virginia Beach, Virginia, early Wednesday morning.

Mike Escott was up at 3 a.m. to photograph the blood moon from his home in San Francisco. He was inspired to set his alarm clock early and head up to his roof to document the lunar event.

Brian Greenberg enjoys doing astrophotography and captured the blood moon in Victor, New York.

Nate Paradiso created this composite image of the April 15 lunar eclipes, as seen from the foothills of Boulder, Colorado.

CNN iReporter Dan Huntley mostly does landscape and travel photography, but he turned his camera to the sky for this shot of the "blood moon" over Dallas in April. Huntley has seen eclipses before but not a blood moon. He described it as being "quite amazing."

Photographer José Dominguez Barrera caught one couple's romantic moment in Chetumal, Mexico, under April's blood moon. The man got down on one knee and proposing to his girlfriend. The photographer didn't know the couple, but he found the moment an emotional one.

iReporter Heith Pino of St. Helena, California, used an intervalometer and a shutter release to capture a photo of the April blood moon every four minutes. He stitched together six shots to create this time-lapse photo series. "I was blown away by the colors it reflected and knew I had to brave the cold, chilly evening to capture it," Pino said.

Jeffrey Root shot this photo of the April 15 blood moon through a telescope in Salt Lake City.

High school sophomore Ahan Malhotra and his dad captured this composite image of the blood moon over Miami early April 15. "My dad and I have been planning to view this for many months, and it was truly a breathtaking experience," said Malhotra, an astronomy enthusiast who likes to photograph "mostly galaxies and nebulae."

The April 15 blood moon passes over Port Orange, Florida, in this time-lapse image from Kenneth Ngyuwai.

Photographer Tiffany Chee-Stalnaker captured this radiant shot in Plano, Texas, early on April 15. She says she's always up at night and this time, the sight was "beautiful."

Robert Ondrovic drove around for 90 minutes -- and 70 miles across the New York City suburbs -- before he found a clear patch of sky in April. Ondrovic used his mobile Wi-Fi to live stream Doppler radar images to his laptop, where he created this composite image. "One of my tougher moon shots to say the least," he said.

No stranger to astronomical photography, J. David Osorio photographed the different phases of the lunar eclipse. He started photographing at 10:45 p.m. April 14 and stopped at 3 a.m. April 15. See more of his photos of the moon's progression.

Osorio was part of a small group of past and present physics students from California State University Northridge that got together to view the lunar eclipse and blood moon. "The meeting was spontaneous," said Osorio, an alumnus. Click the double arrow to see more photos.

Osorio joined students and alumni for the photography session on top of a parking structure at the school. Using telescopes, they were able to capture some clean images before the sky clouded over.

Joseph Poirier shot this photo of the blood moon in Austin, Texas, with his telescope. He says he woke up his 10-year-old son, who had never seen a lunar eclipse before.

Norm Keally stood outside in 28-degree weather to capture the start of the lunar eclipse in Fort Collins, Colorado, early on April 15. "I felt fortunate to be able to witness this eclipse," he said.

Dan Hiris said that getting this photo "required a few hit or miss shots," but luckily he had a few hours to get it right. "It felt like the entire solar system turned red," he said.

Kyle Hansen stood outside for an hour in 25-degree weather on April 15 to get this shot of the blood moon over Burnsville, Minnesota. He said it was "very cool to see the shadow of the earth on the moon."

Joel Morales says he superimposed 100 separate images to create this progression photo of the blood moon over Dundedin, Florida, in April.

"It was about an eighth lit up, then about 15 minutes later it started to turn this beautiful red, almost as if Mars or Mercury were very close, close enough for the naked eye" to see, said Robert Aycock of the April eclipse over Temecula, California.

René Dietrich says he was up until 3 a.m. on April 15 to capture this photo from his back yard in San Juna, Puerto Rico, and had to be back up at 7 a.m. to get to work at his dental practice. He says it was worth losing sleep to "see this spectacular show nature offers to us, completely free!"

Abe Blair says it was cloudy when he got up to take pictures of the blood moon, but he decided to try anyway. "I am glad I trusted my gut feeling," he said. Blair had picked this tree out earlier in the day, but he had to hike for about 15 minutes in the dark to get there. He shot a two-second exposure for the moon and a 20-second exposure of the tree, and then combined the images in Photoshop.

Jamal Green used Photoshop to create this composite of shots of the moon over Los Angeles at different phases of the April eclipse. At the height of the eclipse, "the moon looked like a muted sunset in the night sky," he said.

Christopher Decker put his cell phone camera up to a 10-inch telescope to capture these images of the April blood moon over Sargent, Nebraska. He says the final product, a composite of 10 images, was "absolutely worth every minute."

Ian Tailyour took this photo of the blood moon from the 22nd floor of his apartment in Ho Chi Mihn City, Vietnam, in April.

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

Your views of the 'blood moon'

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Photos: Your views of the 'blood moon'

As the moon clipped the sun, it appeared like a fingernail. Or, according to iReporter and independent journalist Georgianne Nienaber, like an iconic arcade game character. "The moon took a little chunk out of the sun, like Pac-Man," she said. Neinaber spent her evening in Sanibel Island, Florida, getting the perfect shot of the eclipse.

Gokhan Saymaz is a part-time professional photographer. He created this dazzling image of star trails above Esentepe, in Cyprus. Saymaz used a long exposure technique, shooting 111 frames with a shutter speed of 30 seconds for each frame, before combining them using star trails software.

An avid astrophotographer, iReporter Carlos Soares took this photo near the Portuguese city of Braga. "This is widefield astrophotography with many targets, taken with a DSLR camera and a lens. We can see several constellations including Cygnus, the Lyra and the Eagle."

This breathtaking moonrise over the Sahara was taken by Slovenia-based photographer Iztok Medja, while in Morocco. In a former job as a nautical skipper, he would spend many night shifts gazing longingly at the sky. He says that it was while he was away from the light pollution of the city that his passion for night photography emerged.

Along with several other camera club members, iReporter Allan Qua Borebor made his way to one of the piers in Caramoan, in the Philippines, at around 11 p.m on June 30th. "The place was so quiet, so serene and so dark ... We were so lucky because a thousand stars showed up," Borebor recalls. "It was a perfect night together with friends."

Sarah Thornington is a Massachusetts-based iReporter who fell in love with the vast expanse above from a young age. On June 27, she picked up her camera and headed to the local drive-in. The night had all the conditions for a perfect shoot and Thornington watched as a couple of shooting stars (seen at the top of the image) blazed across the sky. She is already thinking about her summer stargazing bucket list -- to get "that beautiful shot of the Milky Way as it rises over the ocean."

Greg Hogan may only have been aiming his camera at the sky for the last six months but the astrophotography bug has bitten him pretty hard. "I bought a telescope for $25 at a yard sale and the first time I saw Saturn's rings, I was completely hooked," he says. "There's just so much out there that people don't realize that you can see without the equipment being expensive if you just slow down a minute and take a peek."

Jason Hullinger went to Joshua Tree National Park last December to catch the Geminid meteor shower. He set up his tripod to take 20-second exposures from about 11 p.m. Thursday to 3 a.m. Friday. He took about 500 photos and combined them with StarStaX, an image stacking and blending software for star trail photography.

Stephen Gill who loves "science, space and all things tech-y," captured this photo while vacationing in Grand Cayman with his wife on August 13 last year. "I've been out three nights in a row trying to capture a Perseid (meteor shower) since the conditions here are amazing, and finally got lucky," he said.

An enthusiastic stargazer, 39-year-old Lewis de Mesa wasn't going to miss an opportunity to snap the Camelopardalids meteor shower in May this year. Standing atop the highest peak in the United Arab Emirates, de Mesa snapped this impressive shot but wasn't thrilled by the result. "Not so much luck here in the United Arab Emirates," he said. "It wasn't that great ... Good thing I got some Milky Way goodness."

Among the stars: Your shots of the cosmos

Among the stars: Your shots of the cosmos

Among the stars: Your shots of the cosmos

Among the stars: Your shots of the cosmos

Among the stars: Your shots of the cosmos

Among the stars: Your shots of the cosmos

Among the stars: Your shots of the cosmos

Among the stars: Your shots of the cosmos

Among the stars: Your shots of the cosmos

Among the stars: Your shots of the cosmos

Of course, staring at the sun is never a good idea, even during an eclipse.

Although the supermoon is not as rare as some other celestial events, it still inspires people to turn their gazes skyward. During the early morning hours of July 12, Marie Sager ventured outside her Los Angeles backyard to spot the supermoon before it faded away.

Rachel Cauvin photographed the supermoon hanging over the Bronx, New York, sky. The morning haze seemed to give the moon a red hue.

Minister Glenn Daman shot this photo from his deck in Stevenson, Washington, as the moon rose on the mountains across the Columbia River Gorge. He was hoping to capture "the surreal and haunting image that the cloud covere provided." We'd say he succeeded!

As the supermoon rose over the Long Island coast, Elias Aliprandis said he was inspired to take a photo because of its amazing beauty and bright orange hue.

The supermoon this weekend was the best one iReporter Vijay Pandrangi has ever seen. The software engineer from Bothell, Washington, says he can't wait to see the supermoon again on August 10.

It took Tim Durkan several lonely hours to get the perfect shot of the supermoon over the weekend in Seattle.

Durkan waited outside all night to photograph the supermoon, trying to capture an evening and day shot of the bright moon.

Mike Chiodo, who professionally goes by Mikiodo, loved photographing the supermoon so much, he did it two nights in a row. "Living in New York City, I am always craving some nature; I don't get enough. So I often look to the evening and nighttime skies to get my fix," he said.

"Every supermoon and celestial event is an opportunity to practice and figure out what settings work best for different shots," Talia Landman of Orlando, Florida, said.

Homer Liwag and his dog Sake sat in the desert in Las Vegas, Nevada, waiting for the supermoon. "This supermoon was striking as usual," he said.

Kelli Thompson photographed the supermoon from the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. "The airplane bisecting the supermoon was quite unusual and unexpected," she said.

Janice Wei photographed the supermoon from the San Francisco Bay Area on July 12. "I love to capture the moon. It's very beautiful and powerful when it's full," she said.

"It was so beautiful. It was larger than other moons. We had a thunderstorm trying to develop right when it was rising," Patti Wolff from Phoenix, Oregon, said.

The supermoon made an exciting appearance in other parts of the world, too. Marlo Cueto ventured to a park in Makati City, Philippines, so that he could find some sky that wasn't saturated by light pollution. Using a DSLR camera, he photographed the moon through the thick clouds floating above.

Stojan Stojanovski photographed the supermoon from Ohrid, Macedonia. He photographs the supermoon every year and tries to find interesting ways of showcasing its beauty. This year, he took of a photo of the moon behind a family of storks.

Will Cuccaro made this "bracketed" image from three individual photos taken at varying exposures. "Finding the right level of bracketing and then the right shutter speeds and aperture was trial and error. All in all, about 25 minutes outside in 100-degree heat = pain in the butt!"

Over the years, Katherine Murray has taken some nice full moon photos from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, but capturing an orange moon had eluded her until this weekend. "I was thrilled to be able to get the actual color as it came over the dunes," she said.

"Clouds obstructed the moon until very late. But when I came outside at about 3:00 a.m. it was very bright!" Wanda Gemson wrote in her iReport. She watched the supermoon from Yucca Valley, California.

After seeing people sharing beautiful supermoon photos, Manuel Navarro tried his hand at astrophotography. He captured this up-close shot of the moon over Chula Vista, California, with the help of a telescope on July 13.

"As a photographer and astronomer, a full moon is typically nothing to get excited about for me unless it's going to be somehow unique, such as in color," John Thiel of Astoria in Queens, New York, said. When he saw the amber coloring of the moon, he had to take a photo.

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The summer of supermoons

"Don't stare," NASA urged. "Even at maximum eclipse, a sliver of sun peeking out from behind the Moon can still cause pain and eye damage. Direct viewing should only be attempted with the aid of a safe solar filter."

Greg Hogan of Kathleen, Georgia, attached his camera to a telescope with a solar filter in order to photograph the show. Hogan, who usually photographs the moon, started experimenting with sun photography this week.

The effort was worth it, he said. "It was epic!"

The above photos were snapped by iReporters across the country, all with the aid of filters or other creative methods of viewing the eclipse indirectly. Check out the gallery and share your own eclipse photos here.