It comes as no surprise that looking at the sun, particularly through a telescope, is very dangerous. But sadly some people still try it.
TV astronomer and author Mark Thompson explains that looking directly at the sun can severely damage a person's eyesight.
Using a pig's eye, Thompson conducted an experiment to see what harm would be caused by looking at the sun through a telescope.
And the results were terrifying.
Using a 80mm telescope with a magnification of 50 times, Thompson held the eyeball up to the eye piece.
He explained that all of the sun's energy going through the telescope was being focused onto the eye.
After about 20 seconds of looking through the telescope, the eye started to smoke.
"The smell was pretty grim" said Thompson.
At the end, he held the eye up to the camera which revealed that the sun's energy had burnt a huge hole into the cornea and the lens.
"If this was a human eye, there would almost certainly be some pretty severe damage," he explained.
"And that is why it's a very, very bad idea to look at the sun through the eyepiece of a telescope."
[H/T Metro]
