Eclipse Viewing

My daughter can never enjoy an eclipse with traditional eclipse glasses or shoe-boxed size pin hole camera. (The sun is just too small when looked at directly or through a standard pinhole camera.) But that doesn’t stop her enjoying an eclipse! Several things worked for her to see the moon take a bite out of the sun.

  • Recommended: View the eclipse from a popular eclipse viewing spot and find a generous person with a big telescope set up with the right filters. This is the best. People can be so generous and a nice telescope provides a large sharp image. Highly recommended. (My daughter got to view the eclipse through an Orion XT10 Dobsonion Reflector Telescope. You can of course get your own, but that is beyond my expertise.) Below is a photograph of the image in the telescope (the real image was not cropped in the upper left corner—that is my bad photography).
Image of full solar eclipse April 8, 2024 by telescope. The sun is a black disc surrounded by a white ring of the corona in a dim sky.
Image of full solar eclipse April 8, 2024 via telescope
  • Recommended: Skip the pinhole camera and make a pinhole projector. You’ll want something on the ground to serve as a projector screen. This could just be a flat bit of concrete but if you get a large piece of cardboard and cover it in white paper you can set up anywhere. Next you need something with one or more holes in it to hold up and project shadows onto your screen. Our favorite was a plastic IKEA colander (photo below). The smaller the holes the sharper the projected image of the eclipse will be (but also the dimmer the image will be—a pinhole could make an image that is too dim to see when not inside a dark box.) The higher in the air you hold your colander or other source of holes the larger the images will be. Holding them up six feet in the air can give you quarter sized images. This is easy and works well. Bring several objects with holes and experiment! (Why does this work? See this great explainer video if you are curious.)
The image shows a large square of white paper on a round cardboard disk lying on the ground. The shadow of a mans head appears next to the shadow of a round colander. The colander's shadow appears as a dark gray circular shadow pierced by concentric rings of bright light piercing through the holes in the colander. Each splash of light looks like the image of a crescent moon, but is actually the image of a crescent sun---the portion of the sun not obscured by the moon. The sun is slightly more than half obscured by the moon because it is early in the eclipse.
Images of the April 8, 2024 Eclipse projected onto white paper on the ground using an IKEA colander.
  • Recommended: Solar Snap Eclipse App: This also worked. With the eclipse viewing filter (sold at the same link—its the same stuff as the eclipse glasses but with a velcro sticker to attach to the phone over the camera lens—so you could make yourself from any eclipse glasses) my daughter could see an image of the eclipse on the phone screen. See below for screen shots I took using the app of the total eclipse (left) and the partial eclipse leading up to it (right).
  • Six foot pinhole camera: Not really recommended because other options are easier and just as good or better but I had fun making this and it produced an image of the eclipse (in the partial stage) big enough for my daughter to see. Below is a photo of the image through the viewing window:
  • Six foot pinhole camera—Materials:
    • Tripod
    • 4 foot long piece of wood 1.75” x .75” or similar
    • Two 4 inch diameter 3 foot long mailing tubes (mine were from Staples).
    • Duck tape and scotch tape
    • Scissors
    • Utility knife
    • Tin foil
    • Pin
  • Six foot pinhole camera—Directions:
    • Remove one plastic cap from the end of each tube and tape them together in the middle into one long tube. (You may want to delay this step until assembly of your tripod at your final destination so its easier to fit this in your car. Bring all your tape, scissors, and foil with you for on-site repairs.)
    • Using a utility knife, cut a small rectangular viewing window near one end of the tube. See photo below for approximate position and size.
  • Optional: Remove the cap next to your viewing hole and glue a circle of white paper to its inside surface to be your projector screen. (You may find the plastic cap is a good enough screen without a paper covering.)
  • Cover the plastic end cap that is next to your viewing hole completely with foil, including the corners, and seam with the tube to seal out light. Tape it onto the tube so it can’t fall off.
  • Remove the other remaining plastic cap from the other end of the other tube. Cut out a one-inch square hole from center. Cover the entire cap with foil and use a pin to make a pinhole in the center. Once the cap is reattached to the tube, make sure to cover it with foil at the corners and seams with the tube (without blocking your pinhole) to seal out light and attach it with tape so it cannot fall off.
  • Tape your 4 foot piece of wood to your tripod, and your tube to the piece of wood.
  • When in location, adjust the tripod so that the contraption balances, the viewing window is at eye-height, and the pinhole is pointed toward the sun. It must be pointed exactly at the sun for the image to be visible. To do this, adjust the tripod so that the shadow of the tube on the ground is only a circle (you need full sun for this step). Fully extend trips legs for maximum stability. Mount the tube on the tripod off center so viewing hole is at appropriate height.