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Annular Eclipse
May. 21st, 2012 03:35 pmSo, yesterday I dragged my mom up to Willows, which was just barely far enough North to see the eclipse go completely annular. We staked out a picnic table at an I-5 rest area and tried pinhole projections, which worked well but we had to keep the image small to have it be clear, and using binoculars as projectors, which worked well for the beginning of the eclipse but distorted the image by magnifying the light so that at one point the sun looked like Pac-man, and instead of ring of fire around a big old moon shadow we saw an image more like a CD.
But in my figuring out of where to go I had come across a mention that, especially with annular eclipses, there is a neat effect where sunbeams passing through a tree's leaves will turn holes and gaps in the leaves into projectors, giving you multiple images of the eclipse in the tree's shadow. And the rest area had a handy tree casting it's shadow onto a convenient shed and it looked very cool.
More pictures and video at http://www.flickr.com/photos/8313730@N07/
But in my figuring out of where to go I had come across a mention that, especially with annular eclipses, there is a neat effect where sunbeams passing through a tree's leaves will turn holes and gaps in the leaves into projectors, giving you multiple images of the eclipse in the tree's shadow. And the rest area had a handy tree casting it's shadow onto a convenient shed and it looked very cool.
More pictures and video at http://www.flickr.com/photos/8313730@N07/