Saturday 18 April 2020

It looks like it must be scattering

Here's another lovely Super Moon photograph taken through a net curtain that I have been sent by our friend. When I did the maths on my own photograph, the angular spread was not enough to justify a conclusion of diffraction as the cause of the spread. Thinking about what I did with the laser yesterday, the situation with the Moon is different. The laser was close to the curtain with the screen distant. The Moon was far from the curtain with the screen (camera) close. With the weave about 0.5mm wide, the screen needs to be several metres from the curtain to get observable diffraction. So it is likely that the effect with the Moon could be scattering. I don't really know enough about the maths there to be able to work it out. Next I need to try the laser far from the curtain with the screen close and also see what happens when I fire the laser at individual threads.
The weave for the picture above looks tighter than mine and the material looks shinier.