Timeline for Why does viewing the sun through a telescope burn your eyes?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apr 10 at 15:51 | vote | accept | Ben Hershey | ||
| Mar 26 at 13:54 | comment | added | Michael C | You don't go blind immediately, but the damage does happen almost immediately. You go blind a few hours later when scar tissues forms over the damaged parts of your retina. Since there are zero pain receptors in your retina, you won't even feel any pain, even after you're blind. | |
| Mar 21 at 19:47 | answer | added | scottbb♦ | timeline score: 5 | |
| Mar 21 at 17:05 | answer | added | Alan Marcus | timeline score: 1 | |
| Mar 21 at 3:03 | comment | added | Ben Hershey | I apologize if this should have been in the physics stack exchange. I've seen other similar questions on here about how lens properties influence image brightness, and this seems related to those, since the main point of my confusion centers around the application of how magnification influences (or doesn't influence) image brightness. | |
| Mar 20 at 19:46 | answer | added | Grimaldi | timeline score: 1 | |
| Mar 20 at 12:47 | answer | added | Steven Kersting | timeline score: 3 | |
| Mar 20 at 11:54 | comment | added | Mark Ransom | You obviously never burned holes in paper with a magnifying glass. | |
| Mar 20 at 9:47 | comment | added | jarnbjo | I am pretty sure that your assumption that it is more dangerous to look at the sun through a telescope than with the naked eye is simply false. | |
| Mar 19 at 21:11 | comment | added | osullic | Curiosity is good but ultimately this site is about solving photographic problems, and I personally don't really think that "Why can't I stare directly at an optically magnified view of the sun?" is a real photographic problem. I think this question needs a re-think at least and a re-write ideally. | |
| Mar 19 at 21:06 | answer | added | Rafael | timeline score: -1 | |
| Mar 19 at 20:51 | comment | added | davolfman | This might be a physics stack exchange topic. My guess would be massively more total energy since you are gathering from something like a 4 inch disk instead of a 4 millimeter disk. So even if the brightness is invariant (which I'm not sure I agree with since apertures are a thing), there is more energized area on the retina and less ability to cool it. | |
| Mar 19 at 19:38 | comment | added | Ben Hershey | @SolomonSlow to be clear, I didn't mean to imply that looking directly at the sun is safe. I said that you can do so and "not immediately go blind". People glance upward toward the sky all the time. This is in contrast to viewing the direct sun through an unfiltered telescope, which I understand to be exceptionally dangerous and you might literally go blind immediately. So the premise of the question is an assumption that the telescope makes things far worse. If this is incorrect, then I'd love to discuss more about that. :) | |
| Mar 19 at 19:34 | comment | added | Solomon Slow | I am reasonably certain that I'd be unable to hold my gaze on the Sun for even one whole second when it was high in a clear sky. And, I don't know where you found the "two seconds...no permanent harm" info, but even if I could train myself not to blink, I wouldn't try it no matter who said it was safe. | |
| Mar 19 at 19:30 | history | edited | Ben Hershey | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
Added another source to help clarify the assumptions
|
| Mar 19 at 18:33 | history | edited | Ben Hershey | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added link to wikipedia
|
| Mar 19 at 18:29 | comment | added | Ben Hershey | I had a long discussion with ChatGPT (GPT-4) about this which was interesting but didn't satisfy my question: chat.openai.com/share/1bf31f9b-d364-42a0-9220-7cdf8328623b | |
| Mar 19 at 18:28 | history | asked | Ben Hershey | CC BY-SA 4.0 |