nass news 2019 july solargraph 1In the NASA Photograph of the Day for 27 June 2019 is a beautiful photograph by Gianluca Belgrado using a pinhole camera. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap190627.html As explained by NASA, "This persistent six month long exposure compresses the time from solstice to solstice (December 21, 2018 to June 16, 2019) into a single point of view....Fixed to a single spot at Casarano, Italy for the entire exposure, the simple [pinhole] camera continuously records the Sun's daily path as a glowing trail burned into the photosensitive paper. Breaks and gaps in the trails are caused by cloud cover. At the end of the exposure, the paper was scanned to create the digital image...."

In 2011 Art Paque explained the art of solargraphy to members of the North American Sundial Society at their annual conference in Seattle.  The construction steps involve creating a pinhole in thin foil, then taping the foil onto a tin can that has photographic paper inside and opposite the pinhole.  The lid on the can is sealed and most important, pointed at the sky with firm support to prevent moving.  The rest is up to nature as the sun crosses the sky each day.  Beautiful solargaphs such as from Gianluca can be obtained with patience tracking the sun for three to six months. In the end your solargarph will be a day by day time capsule of solar observation.

Type "solagraphy" into your web search engine and you will discover a host of sites showing the details of making your pinhole camera.  For example: http://www2.uiah.fi/%7ettrygg/camera.html and http://www.pinholephotography.org/Solargraph%20instructions%202.htm

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