‘How to Capture the Sun in a Beer Can’
The bright arches in this image mark the sun’s path across the sky in Middleburg, the Netherlands, from the summer solstice to the winter solstice.
Amateur astronomer and photographer Jan Koeman slipped a piece of photographic paper into an empty beer can, poked a hole in the can with a pin, and suspended the makeshift camera in the garden from July to December. The sun’s daily tracks, high in the summer and low in the winter, were etched onto the paper. Sometimes the tracks were interrupted by clouds, and some rainy days are missing entirely.