First came the darkening skies, then the crescent-shaped shadows on the ground, and finally an eruption of cheers by crowds that gathered Saturday along the narrow path of a rare “ring of fire” eclipse of the sun.
It was a spectacular show for millions of people across the Americas as the moon moved into place and blocked out all but a brilliant circle of the sun’s outer edge.
Hundreds of people filed into the planetarium in the Caribbean resort city of Cancún to watch the eclipse. Some peered through box projectors, while others looked through telescopes and special glasses.
Excited children whistled, as some adults raised their arms toward the sky as if to welcome the eclipse.
Strangely, none of the telescopes in their video clip were pointing in the same direction. Did they forget where the solar eclipse is/was? 🤔
Probably did a star party the night before, and were all looking at different stuff. Without a filter, looking at even an annular eclipse through a telescope is a recipe for blindness.
A random thought for a possible explanation, you can burn paper with just a magnifying glass. Just good practice to turn them?
They make lens caps ya know. They also make pinhole occluders, which is how I got my photo of it today without a magnifying lens, telescope, or special glasses.
Just a piece of plastic with a tiny hole in it, placed in front of a piece of paper. Basically a crude homemade camera obscura, while I used my phone to photo the paper it projected on.
Now don’t get me wrong, their photos are way better than mine, but still if I had such an advanced telescope, I’d try dialing in the angle in advance and just pop the lens protector back over it until the right time.
They make solar filters for telescopes. That’s what you would use.