Today's lesson is...

[ronnietucker]

Was trying to take some photos of the sun projected onto a piece of white paper today. Didn't have much luck as without a decent setup you need to be a contortionist. Anyway, to get the scope squared up again to the sun (it moves!) I held my phone over the eyepiece, rather than blind myself by looking through the eyepiece. That didn't do much good as it just whited out.

Only now do I find that I've damaged the camera sensor on my phone.

If anyone knows someone who has a knackered Xperia PLAY that I can use for spares do let me know...

[assasincz]

Imagine what it could have done to your retina...good job you did not accidentally blind yourself

I once shone a laser beam off my scope's optics right into my right eye...not pleasant, to say the least.

On a similar note...I have heard that it was Galileo (I think) who reported to see sunspots and "flashes" through his telescope when he observed the sun directly. Rather unsuprisingly, he got blind in the last years of his life.