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NASA needs your smartphone during April's solar eclipse (www.popsci.com)

submitted 5 months ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (2 children)

I'm honestly confused what they can get with shitty, massively processed smartphone sensors at low zoom. I understand the premise of stuff like radio telescopes distributed over a large area, but the quality of cell phone cameras just isn't that high for anything at any kind of distance.

Even with my Canon 5D Mk3, with a 500mm lens multiplied to 1000mm by a teleconverter, and a solar film to manage how insanely powerful the sun is, the quality just isn't that high:

sun

I'm not seeing what a few hundred heavily processed pixels tell you even if you have a lot of samples.

[–] Harriet_Porber@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Earth’s natural satellite can serve as a valuable research partner in measuring the sun’s oblateness. This is due to a phenomenon known as “Baily’s beads,” which are the tiny flashes of light during an eclipse that occur as solar light passes over the moon’s rugged terrain of craters, hills, and valleys. Since satellite imagery has helped produce extremely detailed mappings of lunar topography, experts can match Baily’s beads to the moon’s features as it passes in front of the sun.

The way I'm guessing this works is: Baily's beads will be detectable on shitty cameras since they will be distinct flashes of light, and since we have very detailed information of the moon's topography they can determine information on the sun based on your phone's location and the timing of the flashes of light.

And if that is how it works, that is fuckin rad. A+ science.

[–] conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 months ago

I'd really like to see the modeling on this. My brain just can't compute flashes that are discrete enough and useful enough to serve as data points.

Though once you get into advanced physics my brain starts to melt. And I guess even the idea that they're able to plot the exact angular position to use the topography information is kind of fucking up my head.