cellio: (hubble-swirl)
Monica ([personal profile] cellio) wrote2017-08-21 06:59 pm
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view from a distance

We didn't travel to see the total eclipse. Here in Pittsburgh we got just over 80% coverage, so some coworkers and I went to the roof of the parking garage armed with minimal tools to see what we could see. The pinhole cameras were mildly interesting but low-res; none of us had thought to bring interesting things like collanders to make eclipse art on the pavement. One of the other people there lent us glasses for a few minutes, which was nice.

The view through the glasses was very neat -- just a sliver of sun. The picture I took through the glasses shows a much fatter sliver than was really there. I think the yellower sliver inside the larger orange-yellow sliver might be real and the rest bleed-through or something:



It was still pretty bright and sunny out, even with only 20% of the sun directly visible. It's not like you get dusk-quality lighting. I did notice that it wasn't *as* bright as usual; in particular, not only did I not have to squint like I normally do when outdoors on bright days, but I could even *take off my glasses with transition lenses* and not have to squint. That was pretty neat!

I took a quick photo without the glasses (I figured my phone could handle a very brief exposure). It shows no occlusion. Is that what people foolish enough to look with the naked eye would see? So they'd endure vision loss for... not a whole lot of anything?



These people improvised a pinhole camera that worked better than the one I'd prepared in advance: