
Projection box is an improvement over the simple pinhole projection method which provides higher contrastĮven further improvement can be achieved using a long, fully enclosed cardboard box with a round hole in which the observer should insert his head. To get higher contrast - try projecting the Sun in a dark room through a pinhole located on a curtained window rather than outdoors. You may start with a diameter of 0.5mm and then experiment. Note that if it's too small - the diffraction effects can become dominant and the image will be blurred in addition to being faint. The same goes for the pinhole diameter - the smaller it gets, the sharper and the fainter the image will be. The further the distance between the pinhole and the projection screen is - the larger and the fainter the image will be. Behind the cardboard you should place a sheet of a white paper on which the solar image will be projected. The simplest projector is a piece of a thin cardboard with a small pinhole punctured in it. This method is only useful for observing phases of a solar eclipse, since the image is small and won't reveal any solar "surface" features. If you aren't able to obtain a proper eclipse viewer - the pinhole projection method is the simplest and the safest one. Pinhole projection of the Sun can be performed with the simplest tools, but the image will be quite small a 50 mm binocular collects 600 times more light than a naked eye). Using optical aids such as binoculars or telescopes without dedicated solar filters is even more dangerous, since they focus and multiply the amount of radiant energy which enter the pupil and can cause damage even during a brief exposure (i.e. This way we can "fool" our eyes and allow them to stay open long enough for this radiation to harm our eyesight. However using improvised and improper filters can reduce the visible glare while letting enough harmful IR radiation through. Normally we can't look at the Sun for more than a few seconds since our eyes are forced to close to protect themselves.
How to see the eclipse with paper telescope full#
However being extremely bright, 400000 times brighter than the full Moon, the Sun poses a significant risk to our sight if observed improperly. Depending on the method and the instrument used - it can reveal beautiful features such as sunspots, granulation, corona (during full solar eclipses), prominences and filaments (observable with a higher end instruments). The Sun is the closest and the brightest star in our sky and it is a rewarding observing target. Can not be observed with unaided eye safely
