What would happen if you looked at the sun with a telescope?

Question

What would happen if you looked at the sun with a telescope? would it burn your eye?

Answer 1

Ever fry ants with a magnifying glass? That's what the Sun and a telescope can do to your eye, only quicker. It would actually hurt. The aperture of the telescope can collect far more sunlight than your unaided eye ever could by itself, far more than your eyes were designed to handle.

You actually CAN look directly at the Sun with your naked eyes, but it is very, very hard on your retinas. You have a focusing lens in your eye called the cornea and it concentrates the solar rays. Fortunately, your irises instinctively close down to protect against the brightness, normally, UNLESS something goes wrong. That's the risk. You really don't ever want to take more than a glance directly at the Sun. You may get lucky but you may not, and you only get one set of retinas.

Answer 2

What you are about to hear is a true story.
I just bought my first telescope, and was out at night , every night for a month, and my neighbor came over to share in the fun. He told me that he had a solar filter for the eyepiece, and we could look at the sun safely. Well, he came by the next day with the filter and I put it onto the eyepiece. The scope is a Meade 4.5 in. Newtonian . After I put the eyepiece into the scope and got the sun into focus,I said," whoa". It was an awesome sight. Sunspots were fabulous. Then my neighbor got his turn to look. As he put his eye to the eyepiece, I heard a pop and he backed away from the scope, and he said ,"I think I may be blind". The filter had cracked, that was the pop that I heard.
A word to the wise. If you have a neighbor like me, tell him to get his own telescope.

Answer 3

Yes, without a sun filter, the heat would damage the telescopes eyepiece as well as permanently damage you eye. The best sun filters are the kind you put over the front of the telescope. They reduce the light coming through the telescope by a thousandth of 1%. The kind you put in front of the eyepiece still receive all that heat and the possibility of cracking one suddenly and damaging your eye is high.

Answer 4

If you looked at the sun with a telescope you would very likely damage your eyes and possibly the telescope.

Now, if you looked at the sun with a telescope with a special solar filter on it, you'd see the sun and possibly sun spots and more without damaging anything.

Answer 5

if u look at the sun without a telescope, it hurts like hell and that is at a normal distance. Enlarge the sun with a telescope and your as good as blind.

Answer 6

YES!

You could have fried eyeball for lunch. Looking at the sun without a telescope can burn your eye too.

Answer 7

You can burn your retina (go blind) by looking at the sun without a telescope.

What's the magnification on a telescope? 100x? 300x? right, so now imagine burning your retina 100 to 300 times worse.

ouch!

.

Answer 8

As a baby, years and years in the past, i have performed this. first and desirable -- do no longer try this it ought to damage YOU heavily! i might want to were 10 or 11, I had a 360X reflector form telescope and did look immediately on the sunlight, no clear out, at about 150X. I did this try decision intently because I knew that there turned right into a fantastic danger i ought to damage my eye. you need to do it in case you look via the interest-piece no better than a 2d or 2 at a time, leaving your self possibly 30 seconds on your eye to relax between observations. the interest piece were given very warm and the lens deformed and become no longer any solid after that. All you'll see in case you look is only a vivid organic white mild contained in the lens. there is no information to be considered. you would get merely as a lot functional guidance about the sunlight from searching on the mild radiating from a mild bulb. i become very fortunate in that i did not do any damage to my eye and, my creative and prescient become no longer harmed. although, the top result would were very, very diverse. do not EVEN evaluate attempting THIS! the outcomes you imagine you would get via searching immediately on the sunlight with a telescope isn't there --- no longer merely is it risky, even though it is also a large waste of time. merely sharing own journey.

Answer 9

hmmm raisins for eyeballs sound really appealing... its bad enough looking at the sun WITHOUT a telescope!!!

Answer 10

Don't do it!!! It will blind you! The telescope intensifies the light!