Mon - October 3, 2005

Partial solar eclipse


You're aware this means partial trouble, don't you


Here it is a couple of pictures taken earlier today here in Bucharest, during the partial solar eclipse, taken through a mythical state-of-the-art disassembled floppy-disk filter.

Wikipedia teaches us that:

There is an urban myth that it is safe to view a solar eclipse through the film of a floppy removed from its case. Despite some anecdotal support, this is in fact dangerous and can lead to retina damage and even blindness. Moreover, it produces poor image quality compared to filters designed for this purpose.

While NASA doesn't mention blindness at all:

More recently, solar observers have used floppy disks and compact disks (both CDs and CD-ROMs) as protective filters by covering the central openings and looking through the disk media. However, the optical quality of the solar image formed by a floppy disk or CD is relatively poor compared to mylar or welder's glass. Some CDs are made with very thin aluminum coatings which are not safe - if you can see through the CD in normal room lighting, don't use it!!

I can confirm, people, NASA is right—CDs are awful thin; I'm not even sure this is my laptop now.



Hey NASA, there-s an itsy-bitsy tiny dot there, don't tell me that's a planet! Is there an astronomer here? Sheesh!, where are the astronomers when you need one?!

Posted Mon - October 3, 2005 at 04:12 PM
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