I did a solo roadtrip from San Francisco to Portland so I can view the 2017 total solar eclipse with my friends in Salem!

Of course, I had to nerd it up a notch

I 3D printed holders for solar filters that attaches to binoculars. The filament I used is a soft PLA (softer than normal PLA, flexible, but stiffer than TPU), and I used a circular arrangement of angled “fins” in the design to grip onto the binoculars.

A Pringles can is converted into a pinhole camera on the same 3D printed holder. This is to help you aim at the sun, because the filter will make everything pitch black, so you use the pinhole’s projection to aim at the sun first before looking into the binoculars.

I tried two filters:

• Baader AstroSolar Safety Film: very thin and very light, wrinkles doesn’t matter due to the thickness. It’s a true ND filter and makes the sun look white. I didn’t like it because it was delicate, difficult to work with, and looking at the sun was boring in comparison to…
• Thousand Oaks Optical SolarLite Solar Filter Film: much stiffer, no wrinkles, I didn’t even have to use any glue. Makes the sun look orange.

More Pics in 3 Albums

• Trip Leg 1
• Trip Leg 2
• Trip Leg 3 and 4