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antilumin t1_itrcfjp wrote

I saw something very similar to this during an eclipse a few years back, but it was through the leaves of the trees. Very trippy to see a bunch of crecents of light dancing around.

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Halogen12 t1_itrmmte wrote

It was August 2017 and where I live we got about 50% coverage. I brought a colander to work and was amusing staff, patients, and passersby on the sidewalk with hundreds of mini crescent suns displayed on the sidewalk.

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Tractorhash t1_itrgz1a wrote

Next time you are in an eclipse go outside and look at the shadows cast by a tree...

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jeffh4 t1_itsgvss wrote

I saw a partial solar eclipse via the light filtering through the leaves of a tree. What would normally look like variations of brightness turned into overlapping pinhole cameras.

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Alan_Smithee_ t1_itrgbh8 wrote

You don’t realise you’re looking at a pinhole camera until the first time you see this.

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THE_some_guy t1_itta4zo wrote

Can someone ELI5 why this happens? When there's no eclipse, light spots like this are roughly the shape of the aperture rather than the (circular) shape of the sun. Why does the shape of the hole not matter when the sun is a crescent shape?

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poodlebutt76 t1_itte23d wrote

When the hole/aperture is small enough, it acts like a lens/camera obscura, rather than just a plain opening letting the light through.

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daman4567 t1_itugk4f wrote

It's not that the spots aren't circles, it's just that circles blend together very well and become difficult to notice while the crescent shape does not blend well.

If you have a region covered in circles of light, they blend together to look like a relatively homogenous blob of light.

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spacegardener t1_ittstq2 wrote

Depends on the size of the aperture and its distance from the screen. But people just don't notice that when the shapes are just ellipses.

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FacetiousInvective t1_ittya5q wrote

A nice example of the pinhole effect. It felt magical in August '99.. they were all over the ground!

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