ECLIPSE 1999 - TREES AS PINHOLE CAMERAS

When sunlight passes through a small hole and falls on a smooth surface, you will se a small image of the Sun on the surface. The hole works like a lens, or what is known as a "pinhole camera". This is a safe procedure for observing solar eclipses.

When sunlight passes through the branches of a tree, the spaces between leaves will work in much the same way as a small hole. This results in an image of the Sun being projected onto the ground beneath the tree. As there are many leaves and many small holes, you will usually see a myriad of small Sun-images, partly covered by the Moon, during a solar eclipse. This is what you see on the images above.

The pictures were taken with an Olympus C-1400L digital camera. The time was 13.00 hours, Oslo time, during the eclipse of August 11, 1999. The place was Oslo, where the Moon only covered 72 % of the Sun at maximum.