We've just done a wonderful and successful observation: safely viewing todays solar eclipse (partial where I'm located) using just a kitchen colander and a sheet of white paper.
We have two colanders, and the one with the slightly smaller holes produced a better image.
Whilst being very careful never to look directly at the sun, one of us held the colander up with one hand to cast the shadows on the piece of paper in the other hand.
The other person 'posed' the first person to get the best focus of the projected shadows, and then used a not-very-new camera phone to capture the image.
This image was taken within minutes of the maximum extent viewable of the partial eclipse for us, at around 11:00 UTC today Sat 29 Mar 2025. You can see the outline of the moon, partially covering the disc of the sun, through each of the holes of the colander.
Partial eclipse at maximum viewable extent here. Colander 'pinhole' camera projected on white paper, I'm holding the equipment whilst my glamorous assistant captures the image for posterity with a not-very-new camera phone.
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I went and found my post from the 2017 Solar Eclipse thread, because I remember using a colander to see the eclipse, too. I didn't find any colander pictures, but did find pictures of the eclipse in shadows of holey leaves and also in the sunlight filtering through the trees.
Seeing the solar eclipse in the shadows of holey leaves!
Not the best picture, but many of the bright spots in the shade of the trees were in the shape of the eclipse!
It didn't get very dark at our place, even at 90% eclipse, but it was still fun finding all the little crescents in the shadows, and seeing it be dimmer--but no less saturated--in the middle of the day.
I zoomed in this picture that I found in the other thread. It was at 90% eclipse, and you can see tiny little crescents in the shadow of the thimbleberry leaf in the top right corner. But, even with it being so much darker, the colors were all saturated like daylight (rather than the reddish/yellowish hues of sunset or the greyish cast that everything has on a overcast day).
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See the little crescents in the top right thimbleberry leaf. Hidden crescents everywhere!
there’s a story that my mom tells about being in new york city for an eclipse…probably in the early ‘70’s, where a bunch of people had special dark glasses or pinhole dealies prepared, but part of the best show was under the street trees, where there were hundreds of little shifting crescents on the sidewalk.
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