Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

The most amazing thing I experienced during the last annular eclipse was the thousands of crescent-shaped shadows from wherever a pinpoint of light shone through, say a pair of tree leaves. It was legit astonishing; literally every surface was covered in these crescent refractions of the eclipse.

I doubt very much you'd experience anything like that on an airplane, but possibly that's just me having sour grapes this time.



I thought the same thing! Even cooler was that I noticed them before the eclipse and took a picture. Walking back to my car after the eclipse, the crescents had flipped!

Just for you, I created an Imgur account. Cheers.

https://imgur.com/a/TwlmbDw


Thank you!! I haven't seen this and was having trouble picturing it, now it makes perfect sense. It's not the edges of the leaves but the pinholes between overlapping leaves that allows the shape through.


Thanks for sharing this; I wasn’t able to picture what they were describing.


Yeah, I was amazed to learn that dappled sunlight is actually thousands of pinhole images of the sun, and during an eclipse all the little circles turn into crescents!


You can experience them anywhere the sunlight is passing through small holes. Punch a bunch of holes through paper with a needle or pencil.


Last eclipse I was similarly fascinated to discover that the lens flare on my iphone timelapse showed the same crescent, and turned the timelapse from boring to worthwhile.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: