4I7e1sVp Yes the "flashlight" suggestion was to actually look into the lens from outside at the sensor.
You can possibly do this with your phone. A trick here is to put it in video mode, with the light on, which then gives you time to adjust zoom, and focus until the sensor is clearly visible. Here's a better example of what that looks like if everything is ok. The green spot is lens flare.
In the earlier example you can see that the sun actually burned the area surrounding the sensor, and presumably the sensor itself as well. It doesn't happen instantly but if it were sitting still (not tracking) and the sun crosses the sensor at its normal 15 degrees/hour rate, then it definitely would burn it. If you instead were just panning the scope and crossed the sun in a few seconds then probably not damaged.
