Maybe my phone case making a pinhole for light somehow?

  • @ch00f@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    448 months ago

    Your camera lens is made of several pieces of glass. The glass is designed to admit as much light as possible on to the sensor, but at each layer, a small amount is reflected.

    If the source light is bright enough, especially in comparison to the background, these reflections bounce around a bunch and eventually hit the sensor. Normally, any reflections are very faint and get washed out by the rest of the image, but the sun is like 1000x brighter than the sky, so even a weak reflection shows up.

    • Zelda Goats
      cake
      link
      fedilink
      88 months ago

      Any colander/pasta strainer with round holes works wonders for this. One hundred little eclipses cast on the ground–it’s like a free pinhole camera!

      • @MisconductOP
        link
        58 months ago

        My husband was telling me that sometimes it lines up just right through trees and you’ll get thousands of little eclipses lol. Must be nice to have lots of trees. Stupid desert :(

        • Zelda Goats
          cake
          link
          fedilink
          28 months ago

          Very true! I viewed a solar eclipse under an arbor/pergola that was covered with leaves, and the entire length of the sidewalk inside was nothing but tiny crescent suns.

  • @niktemadur@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    118 months ago

    Ooh, that’s a classic! An inevitable happy accident on your behalf.
    Shadows under tree canopies also create the same effect, a lot of little “pinhole cameras” between leaves.

    • @JPSound@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      28 months ago

      I drilled a hole in a piece of scrap wood I had in my shop so my wife and I could observe it the only way we could with what we had on hand. Still cool as hell to see that in any form IRL.