Yay -- science still works

[jducoeur]

Having not done the advance planning needed to procure a pair of the dorky-but-necessary goggles for directly looking at the eclipse, I did the quick-and-dirty version instead: creating a "pinhole camera" by taking two index cards, punching a hole through one with a needle, holding them a couple of inches apart, and adjusting the distance between them until I got reasonable focus.

Quite neat -- while not nearly as spectacular as being in totality no doubt would have been (both my parents and my boss flew to the Carolinas for it today), it provided a good firsthand illustration of the principles as the visible dot in my "camera" went from circle to crescent over about ten minutes or so.

The one negative observation: I am now nearsighted enough that actually observing this now requires taking off my glasses. (Even my bifocals aren't good enough to resolve that level of detail. But at least my eyes are Really Good at Up Close and Tiny nowadays.)

Comments

[laurion]

Was clear enough in Framingham I was able to take J out into the driveway with the glasses I got.

The problem is that there was in fact a program (maybe not from NASA though) to seed libraries with glasses, but by no means was it all libraries - pretty sure they targeted areas where people would be better served with a supply of free ones. Natick usually won't make a list like that. More importantly though, -every- place that had them ran out over a week ago - I know because I went to all the stores that were supposed to carry them a day or two too late. Got lucky with an ebay offering though. Not sure why anyone thought a place that might have been giving them out for free would still have any left the day of...

We were also driving in to Arlington yesterday afternoon and stopped at the Pike travel plaza just about the time of the peak eclipse here. There were a lot of us out there looking up through our glasses. And a surprising number of people looking up without any equipment at all - as if they'd be able to see anything.