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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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