Eclipse viewing equipment

This Friday morning, there will be an eclipse of the sun.  Although this will be a total eclipse in some northern parts of the globe, it will be just 84% here in the London area of the UK.

Some of the science teachers at school are very keen to give lots of   students an opportunity to view this spectacular event safely. There must be no opportunity, obviously, for students accidentally to look directly at the sun.

One option is the set up I have here.  It is a mirror, mounted in a wooden block and screwed to a tripod.  The mirror is largely covered by an envelope with a hole in it.  If the mirror is outside the lab in the sun, reflecting the sunlight in through the window of the lab on to the opposite wall, it creates an image of the disc of the sun.  The smaller the hole in the envelope, the sharper and clearer the image;  however a small hole also results in a dim image which can only be seen in a very dark room.  I have therefore made a selection of envelopes with different size holes so that we can select the one which works best on the day.

Having said that, there is a high probability of cloud cover totally obscuring the sun that morning.  That's life, I guess.

On another matter, the Blip community has responded to the sad news that Blipfoto Ltd has gone into liquidation with an enormous outpouring of support for founder, Joe Tree, and the team at  Blip Central.  At present the future of this amazing and wonderful site is unclear, but the statement from Joe today at least gives encouragement that the platform will continue to exist.  I hope that Joe and his team also have a bright future.

I, for one, will not be jumping ship.  I shall continue to blip unless or until the site closes (but I sincerely hope it doesn't).  If the worst happens, then I shall probably follow other blippers to 365project.org, creating an account there under the same name (Colstro), but I won't do that unless I am forced to.

In the meantime, let's all show our support for the site by continuing to blip.