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

[keshwyn]

Should I include you in my nefarious and nebulous planning to drive north for the 2024 eclipse? ;) It will involve my planning ahead so we wall have eclipse-watching glasses, among other things.

[writerkit]

We had lots of cloud cover in Natick, so I only got to see a little of it. (Also I was on desk, but it was dead-quiet inside because everyone was on the lawn, so they let me go take a peek.) I had eclipse glasses because Hunter got me a pair, but I didn't get more than a quick peek. And then I passed my glasses off to a small child. We had something like 600 people on the library lawn.

We're also all *really* glad it's over, because some TV station said libraries were giving out the glasses, which was *never* true, and so we've been dealing with people coming in and asking for glasses for the last week, and the people who were on this morning apparently had to deal with the phone ringing off the hook all with people asking if we have glasses to give away.