Abstract:

On August 21, 2017, millions of people across North America turned their (protected) eyes to the Sun to witness a total solar eclipse. At the same time in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, LightSound, an Arduino device developed at Harvard University, streamed the event online for the blind and visually impaired around the world. In a process called "sonification," the device uses a light sensor that takes the measured intensity of light (in the IR band, visual band, or both) and converts it to a pitch so that the listener can experience the real-time darkening during an eclipse. In preparation for the 2019 and 2020 eclipses in Chile and Argentina, LightSound has been redesigned with a MIDI synthesizer to allow the user to choose a variety of sound outputs and to offer a more rugged and telescope-adaptable interface. The documentation and code for LightSound, which costs about $70 to build, will be freely available online so that others may build their own (and modify the code, if they wish).