Public Story
For NYT: Opening up the eclipse to people who cannot see it
Nancy Stella Quenguán, a leader of the visually impaired community in Palmira, Colombia, remembers an eclipse that occurred in 1991.
“Having lost my vision two years earlier, I sensed the hens seeking their nests and the weather turning cooler,” she said. “As light returned, birds sang as if welcoming dawn.”
Eugenio Obando, who studies psychology at the National University of Colombia at Palmira, remembers seeing the blurry circle of the moon in his childhood. Now, with deteriorating vision, he can perceive only hints of brightness from the sun.
Neither Ms. Quenguán nor Mr. Obando could see the eclipse with their eyes. But on Saturday, they and hundreds of other people gathered to experience it with a device that translates light into sound, in a process known as sonification.
The device, called LightSound, produces variable beeping sounds, which slow in frequency during the darkest minutes of an eclipse and increase as daylight returns.
see-it
‘Ring of Fire’ Solar Eclipse: An Eclipse Concludes Its Path Through the Western HemispherePeople in eight American states, Mexico, a number of Central American countries, Colombia and Brazil savored the astronomical wonder of Saturday’s annular eclipse.
Nytimes.com
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