Photographing and viewing the sun or any solar event can be a challenging task. The bright glare of the sun needs significant filtering before it becomes safe to view or photograph. Professional astronomers use narrowband filters like Hydrogen - alpha filters to view the sun in a very narrow spectrum of the sun. These things cost several thousands of dollars and are not accessible to most people.
However there are cheap and inexpensive ways to view the sun that will not stress your pocket at all.
Its is the most simple type of a camera. All you need is a shoebox to make it. No glass required!. Puzzled.....?
The fact is that a simple hole punched into a piece of cardboard can make for a easy focussing
mechanism. All you have to do is to take a box and punch a small hole on one side, and make
a small viewing port on one of the sides of the box. Point it to the sun, and presto, one
really cheap and safe solar viewer.
If you have a binocular, you can make this even more fun. Binocular projection
is similar to a pinhole projection, the only difference being that the pinhole is replaced
with a binocular or a small telescope. The advantage is that images come out more sharper
and brighter than that is possible with a pinhole camera
Image Courtesy: Wycombe Astronomical Society
You can be imaginative and make your own ingenious contraption like the one above.
