The SunSketcher project hopes to involve millions of citizen scientists located near the eclipse centerline on April 8. Anyone can use our free smartphone app to take a series of precisely-timed photographs of the eclipse, particularly the bright flashes of Baily’s Beads that happen at second and third contacts. Your smartphone observations will provide a unique contribution to a massive database of images that will allow scientists to determine the sun’s shape with unprecedented precision. The data collected from this research would allow scientists to probe flows in the solar interior, hint at the production of gravitational waves by the Sun, and allow for testing of General Relativity’s theory of gravity!
