Dear Shadow Watchers, I looked at the picture and think that it is an internal reflection inside the lenses. I too tried to take pictures of the eclipse yesterday morning, pointing my camera straight at the Sun. Of course, it was too bright. Then I tried it through a steamed-up window, and the results were not too bad. See attached. Mike Cowham Cambridge UK.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill Gottesman" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2011 1:33 PM Subject: Re: Puzzle Photograph of the Eclipse - A complete guess
This is just a conjecture: I do not think this focused image of the eclipsed sun is a pin-hole artifact. My guess is that it is a focused image by the lens, but is a 2nd or 3rd internal lens relfection. In this manner, the image might be reversed, and its brightness greatly attenuated, so as to allow the sun appear to be displaced, properly exposed, and in focus. I don't see why the front surface of the lens would be hot. My guess about the red glow is that it is a completely different internal reflection, and that the circular nature of it is defined by the circular edge of a lens component. I think this would be analogous to a telescope's or binocular's "exit pupil". -Bill On 1/5/2011 2:54 AM, Frank King wrote:Dear All, A collegue pointed his iPhone at the partially-eclipsed sun yesterday morning and sent me the result: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/fhk1/Eclipse11.jpg It is clear that the camera wasn't stopped down anything like enough but why, he asks, does he get a pin-hole artifact of the eclipsed sun? At this stage of the eclipse the crescent was the other way round from the way it appears in the artifact. This is what one would expect from an image created by a pin-hole but not when printed and turned the right way up! Could this be an image of the reflection in the water? I know almost nothing about iPhone camera technology and cannot give a convincing explanation of the physics behind this artifact. There is also the surrounding elliptical red background to explain. Could that be an image of the hot front surface of the lens? Any thoughts? Frank King Cambridge, U.K.
<<attachment: Eclipse.jpg>>
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