The Selfie Place

We were expecting 200 guests at the college research station where a friend and I were setting up our telescopes for the eclipse.  Someone in our club suggest this viewing device made from a black funnel and a piece of translucent plastic.  The funnel fits over the telescope's eyepiece, and you see an enlarged image of the sun.  This allows 4 or 5 people to see the sun's image at the same time, as opposed if there was just an eyepiece, and only one person at a time could see the image.  This device was a huge hit at the observing session, but not for the reason you would expect.

I think some of the first people to come by this telescope saw the solar funnel image, and immediately sat down on the little stool I brought,  and faced AWAY from the telescope, so that they could either take a selfie of themselves and the image of the sun, or have someone else take their photograph, as is happening here.  I couldn't believe the number of people who wanted to do this.  It was so much fun to see how everyone enjoyed doing this unexpected thing.