In pysankarstvo we candle eggs for a different reason, although it would be good to know if there was a chick inside an egg we were planning to write a pysanka on.  But no, the main reason for candling is to look for cracks and weak spots in the shell. 

While most cracks can be spotted with the naked eye, it is easy to miss some of the finer ones. If you are working on full eggs, you might not find a small crack until you were heating the egg to remove the wax, or emptying it.–a true tragedy, all that work down the drain.  If you work on emptied eggs, it’s nice to find the crack before the egg explodes in your hands while trying to empty it.

Cracked eggs can go directly into the egg bin in your refrigerator, and be enjoyed for breakfast, rather than making a huge mess in your studio. 

If you don’t write many pysanky, a candler is not really worth buying–it is easy to candle an egg in front of a powerful light.   But if you write a lot of eggs, or teach a lot of classes, and candler is well worth it, just for the protection it affords your eyes.

I use a Brinsea Ovaview egg candler, pictured at the top of this page.  It is available on line from poultry suppliers as well as Amazon, and much more convenient than traditional X-Ray vision devices (top right).  You simply place an egg on the plastic cup, push a button, and the egg lights up.  Working in a darkened room is necessary to see embryonic development within the egg (picture below), but not for seeing cracks, which are much more easily spotted.

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