This photo of the Sun taken by a pierced can breaks the long exposure record

Photo paper, a holed can and an abandoned experiment made it possible to beat the record for photography with the longest exposure.

The University of Hertfordshire, located in Hatfield, England, made an incredible discovery on December 10, 2020: a photograph of the Sun taken in long exposure… for 8 years. In 2012, then a student in the fine arts, Regina Valkenborgh installed a device low tech on an abandoned university telescope. It is a can with a hole, the inside of which has been covered with photographic paper – in other words, a pinhole. This makeshift camera was discovered by the technical director of the university who came to dismantle the telescope.

To his surprise, the paper and the capture device had remained in excellent condition. A stroke of luck according to the former student who became a photography technician, who had already tried the technique and was surprised that it was little attacked by wear or mold that could have happened because of the ‘humidity. ” I tried this technique several times but the paper always ended up too curled or ruined by mold », She comments.

The result is a photograph of the Sun, 8 years long exposure. In a press release, the university said there are 2,953 arcs of the Sun in the sky from sunrise to sunset. Each arc obviously corresponds to a day. It is specified by the university that the German photographer Michael Wesely then held the record for a long exposure photograph, captured during 4 years and 8 months. Regina Valkenborgh’s experience undoubtedly exceeds this one.

Hypnotic.