NASA needs your smartphone during April's solar eclipse
NASA needs your smartphone during April's solar eclipse
The free SunSketcher app will use your phone’s camera to record the event and help study the sun’s ‘oblateness.’
Needs is a strong word.
I just need a website that tells me when to start playing Dark Side Of The Moon
Is it really such a great idea to point your smartphone camera at the sun? Won’t this damage the ccd?
Won’t this damage the ccd?
Yes, which is why you need to use a solar filter.
Here's the map of the April eclipse across the US. It will go from Dallas Texas and curve off through Buffalo New York and maine:
Going right through my town and I'm looking forward to it... so of course there will be total cloud cover.
Oh I'm going to do this. I'll have 97% at my little cabin, and my husband is going to drive a little bit east to film the totality. We were planning to film anyway, so we might as well share it with NASA.
Nice!
The Google play store says only 500+ downloads, we've got to pump up those numbers
I get "This app is not available for any of your devices". Maybe I'm behind the times.
Odd, my phone is far from a flagship but it is only a year old.
You won't be able to see the eclipse from everywhere so it seems pointless for anyone anywhere it can't record anything useful 🤷🏻♂️
I'd love to do this; but I'm in California and it looks like it's only gonna be visible near the east coast.
It's going on a curve from Texas through the middle of the country and then out through Maine, it's just that more of the population lives on the coasts. I've just given it a review, though, to hopefully bring some visibility!
Is there any risk of damaging your phone/camera by pointing it directly at the sun? Or is it dim enough during the eclipse to not matter? The article doesn't say how long you would need to point it at the sun, maybe a few minutes to an hour.
A camera isn't your eyes, you could point it at the sun all day.
Nearly every photographer that comments on this issue says it is OK if you do it very briefly such as when you are taking a scenery photo and the sun is in the picture. The argument for it not being safe is that some of the more recent smartphones use larger and faster lenses (f/1.7 to f/2.0) to get better resolution, and that can be a problem. Most digital cameras have an Auto mode in which they will automatically reduce the exposure speed and increase the f/stop to take the photo, and this will not harm the camera
Source: NASA(PDF warning)
I have a fairly recent android phone, but the app says it's not compatible. I don't see any page that lists models which are compatible. Did anyone else find one?
Yeah I had this all set up and ready to go. As it instructed, I started it about 5 minutes before totality. It began counting down until it took the first picture. Then instead of taking pictures the app just closed/crashed.
"This item is not available in your country". Too bad, I thought they could use data from Canada but I guess not!
$50, and it's yours.
Do they pinky promise not to look through my history? Or photos? Or apps? Or bookmarks? Or messages?
