Posted on 12/22/2011 9:35:19 AM PST by DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis
An amateur astronomer has captured a breathtaking image of the sun, tracking its progress between the summer and winter solstices using a pinhole camera made from and old tin tea caddy.
Professor Greg Parker set the camera up in his garden and exposed the film from longest day to shortest day to get the maximum spread of the sun's path.
Over six months the 57-year-old captured the black and white image using an observatory he built at the end of his garden, in the New Forest.
The professor of electronics at Southampton University set the camera up on June 21 to December 21 at his home in Brockenhurst, Hants.
The pinhole image 'burns' itself into the paper over the six months of exposure time meaning you don't need to develop the photographic paper.
After removing the photographic paper from the pinhole camera it's essential to quickly get it into a digital scanner to 'lift' the image off the paper.
He said: "It is a six month pinhole camera image of the sun crossing my southern horizon at the New Forest Observatory.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Ping
At 33N we just don't get that much variation.
This photo is very inventive. Very kool.
I used a large cardboard box.
He only needed about 40-50 not-100%-overcast days during the interval to make that picture.
I think the symmetry is the most beautiful thing here. We live in an ordered world.
“that’s worth a bump” bump
Thanks DeoVindiceSicSemperTyrannis.
An “extra, extra” ping to the APoD list members.
Whenever we flew to England in a P-3 we used to joke about leaving the sextant home.
When I used to work in the oil patch on the North Slope of Alaska (70* N Latitude) the sun disappeared around Thanksgiving and did not return above the horizon until the end of January.
The Full Moon of December and January did not set - just circled in the sky. That was something to see!
Now I live in northern Idaho at 48* N Latitude. I still consider the Winter Solstice to be the first day of Spring because the days start to get longer.
Speaking of spring coming, I live in VA and we have daffodils coming up (and a few already in flower). They seem to come up earlier and earlier every time....This year, the first nubs popped out of the dirt around october...
The position of the sun at the same time every day forms what's called an "analemma" that varies with your latitude.
Neat. Thanks.
Had a friend make a seismometer out of a metal bandaid box, a coil of wire and some magnets.
He buried it in his back yard and measured the variations in electron flow in the coil of wire to get readings.
If I remember right, it picked up the earthquake in San Fran back in the 90s.
cool!
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