The reason this happens is because the tiny gaps between the leaves act as lenses, like in a pinhole camera.
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2025
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A pinhole camera has no lens. The effect here is like a pinhole camera, but a pinhole camera is nothing at all like a lens. Pinholes diffract light. Lens refract light.
EDIT: Of course you can't resolve an image through diffraction. That's not how pinholes cameras work. Diffraction negatively impacts image resolution, but it absolutely happens when light passes through them. But, although lens do use refraction to resolve an image, that same process also has unintended negative effects on image resolution (spherical aberration, chromatic aberration, etc.). I didn't bring up any of that because it was ultimately a distraction from the important part: narrow gaps diffract light, lens refract light, and pinhole cameras do not work like lens.
Pinholes diffract light.
The diffraction effects from a pinhole camera are not what make them work. In fact, diffraction makes the photographs worse than they otherwise would be. The pinhole makes an effective aperture for photography because it's small size produces small circles of confusion on the film plane. Ideally, you would make the hole as small as possible, but beyond a certain (small) size, defraction becomes the dominant source of blurring. So the size of the pinhole should be chosen to yield the best balance between geometric blur and diffraction blur.
The diffraction is merely a limit to the smallness of the aperture, and not what creates the image.
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Our window blinds at school had tiny holes in them for the strings to go through and they had the exact same effect. You could see the eclipse projected once the tables.
Sunlight is always doing this. It's just that we call overlapping projections of a boring white-filled circles “dappled sunlight”.
You can actually use this, or more generally the shadow of a tree on any sunny day to calculate the distance to the sun !
(Can't seem to find the video demonstrating it, but I have a feeling it's from Physics Girl or Up And Atom on youtube)
The ratio of the size of the image to the distance from the pinhole is the same as the ratio of the size of the sun to the distance to the sun.
Only if you know the sun's size, which kind of presupposes you know its distance.
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how?
My gut says Thales' thorem, but this needs checking.
That's why I was looking for the video
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It's uncanny and special for someone to be looking the other way during an eclipse.
It's so short and a rare enough even that would make earth a tourist hotspot for extraterrestrials if there ever was interplanetary tourism.
It’s uncanny and special for someone to be looking the other way during an eclipse.
During the two minutes of totality I tried really hard to take in as much as I possibly could. The light was very weird the entire time and because I wasn't looking at the sun and moon when it happened, I saw the weird wavey shadow things as totality ended. Absolutely incredible experience and I highly recommend everyone experience it at least once in their life!
Unless it was an annular eclipse, or it was a total eclipse and they weren't in the path of totality. Then this is all they would see. Regardless without eclipse glasses you shouldn't look at either eclipse at all.
I witnessed a partial one, with eclipse glasses. Still I didn't have the time or observational talent to notice the effect on the shadows
You can glance at the sun but don't stare at it. Even when it's only 1% visible, it's putting out enough light to strain or damage your eyes.
Though it's fine to look at the eclipse with naked eyes when it's total. You can't really see the cool effect surrounding the moon during totality with the eclipse glasses on because it's way dimmer than the sun usually is.
Your eyes will tell you if it's safe to look. If it's uncomfortably bright, then you shouldn't power through that discomfort (and that applies to things other than the sun). If it feels like looking at anything else, then it's probably fine.
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You only see this during the partial stage of the eclipse, not during totality, which can last a long time.
I witnessed a partial eclipse, didn't notice the shadow effect. I might pay attention next time...
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Picture I took in Texas during the eclipse
Here is one I took using our hands to create the effect. 
I'm having a hard time understanding this. How many hands do you have? How can you use 2 hands to create this effect and still hold a camera?
They said our hands. Clearly they are a conjoined twin with 3+ arms.
Busted lol
we're not going through this again
why? They clearly have crab claws for hands, how else would that picture be possible.
We have LED street lights and our driveway is lined with crepe myrtles. Every evening after dark, I can see the grid pattern of the individual LEDs in the shadows on our driveway. It's trippy when there's a slight breeze, and all these little "grid shadows" are moving around overlapping each other
Woah, like an irl glitch or something? Im super intrigued
You can make a hole with your fingers and see the patterns of very bright lights above you, stadium lights etc. It's just a vertical camera obscura. I remember the 90s solar partial eclipse really well because I was riding home from school, the leaves and even the spokes on my bike projected moons everywhere, it was completely magical.
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Best bokeh balls
Heey, it's Elden Ring!
Heey, it's the intro to Heroes on NBC
Thought it was just my coffee table
well technically thats shadow of moon multiplied "naturally".
I think you need to turn on antialiasing in your settings
Bubbles!
Reminds me of a few Cessna's i worked on.
Jealous.
Oh i was just the mechanic
Still jealous haha! They're such cool planes. I used to process aerial imagery from them.
Ah nice! I liked the Lancairs, i got to fly one of them. For working in i think Pipers were my favorite, especially the Malibu. Plenty of space and logical layouts.
I guess working in the engines was nicer in the Cessnas since there was less baffling and no turbo, less places to drop books and nuts.
Big if true
C
C++
Ye older Arboreal Eclipse
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