3253: Sunbeam

Sunbeam

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Title text: While weather control is typically thought of as a superpower, the unconscious ability of astronomers and astrophotographers to summon clouds is more properly classified as a curse.

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Explanation

This is one of 45 incomplete explanations: This page was created BY A TABLE SOON TO BE LIT BY THE SUN. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

Astrophotography is the act of taking pictures of very distant (often celestial) objects, such as nebulae. This is done mostly at night, although a certain someone probably could do it during the day. Therefore, an astrophotographer would not need to know about the sun's position while taking photos of the night sky, because the sun is not out^{[citation needed]} when astrophotgraphers are doing astrophotography.

The title text states that they also have a "superpower" which makes clouds always seem to show up in front of the night sky when astrophotographers are near, thereby ruining their photos, which is why the title text classifies it as a curse (maybe)

Transcript

This is one of 26 incomplete transcripts: Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[Cueball, Megan, and White Hat are in a large dark room, presumably a restauraunt, with two tables and a large window. The window is casting a large sunbeam between the two tables.]

Cueball: Let's take the far table. The closer one will be in the sun soon.

[Caption below the panel:]

Astrophotography gives you exactly one extremely minor superpower.

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Discussion

did the transcript, but the explanation seems a bit daunting GreyFox (talk) 15:32, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

You beat me to the punch! Very fast editing. And I agree, the explanation seems a little too out of reach for my knowledge base. Most likely explanation is that Astrophotography requires the knowledge of how the sun moves in relative to the Earth to take good photos, but that's just my guess. 66.154.219.128 15:35, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

yeah, i tried to be fast; thanks for fixing the caption for me btw. searching astrophotography on wikipedia didnt really help much; lets wait for another more nerdy experienced user to get that done GreyFox (talk) 15:48, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

No problem. 66.154.219.128 16:11, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Can we deduce that the comic takes place in the northern hemisphere? -- 184.174.152.128 (talk) 15:35, 1 June 2026 (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

That was my surface-level interpretation too, that this must be a Southern-facing window in the Northern hemisphere, since the East-West axis (the line that the light will travel along) is roughly parallel to the wall, and the light will pivot to the East (left) as the Sun moves West? SomeDee (talk) 15:52, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Either that, or Cueball is wrong: on the southern hemisphere the sun still "moves" from east to west, but north of the observer. If this was the southern hemisphere, the sun beam would thus move towards the far table. 2001:67C:2564:AB0C:1C57:EB42:6C3F:FD47 16:02, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Yes, when I was in the southern hemisphere all my sense of where the Sun and stars should be moving to was totally off.

The sun could be reflecting off a nearby building, which would mess things up a bit. 64.201.132.210 16:17, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Judging by the style of window, this is most likely near an older part of town or a more suburban area, where there are very few skyscrapers with reflective windows and a lot of wood and brick and mortar buildings, so I think that this is unlikely. 66.154.219.128 16:31, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Hang on, Randall got this wrong. Astrophotography (as defined by the Wikipedia page, the link is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrophotography) is the act of taking pictures of the night sky... where there is no sun. An error on his part? 66.154.219.128 16:21, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Based on the title text, I'm guessing the joke is that because he said there will be sun, there will instead be clouds. His superpower is presumably summoning clouds. 2607:FB91:17EC:E4FE:AD3:E858:6B10:E3E1 16:31, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Wanted to say that you also learn how the sun moves as an astrophotographer, lots of planetary photography can happen during the day (Venus Mercury, strategic sun blocking) and need to take it into account, and there's also taking pictures of the sun with solar filters. So my interpretation of the joke was just genuinely pointing out the mini superpower of intuiting sun movement, rather than a joke about day versus night. 142.114.245.145 16:36, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

Hm, good point. Add that to the explanation if you can, I'm running out of the magic smoke that lets me edit pages. (motivation) 66.154.219.128 16:38, 1 June 2026 (UTC)

I think the point is that someone who does astrophotography is intimately familiar with the motion of objects in the sky due to the rotation of the Earth, the sun is one such object that is visible during the day. Predicting its motion in the sky, due to the earth's rotation allows for the prediction of which table to sit at. The superpower is this predictive ability, which is normally not useful for all that much in modern life.

I don't think Randall messed this up. For example, the zodiac is defined as the Sun's path through the stars, even though the stars and the sun are not visible at the same time. Knowledge of how things move in the night sky is very related to how the Sun moves during the day.
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