Week of March 24-30, 2024
Unless you've been away from the Earth for a while, you've most certainly heard about the upcoming total eclipse of the sun.
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon in its orbit passes directly between our planet and the sun and casts a shadow onto the Earth. On April 8, folks throughout North America will watch as the moon's silhouette appears to take an increasingly larger "bite" out of the sun's disk — a fairly standard partial solar eclipse.
Those along the path of totality, however (which will sweep across North America from Mexico into Texas, through Maine and eastern Canada), will experience a rare and hauntingly beautiful celestial show.
Wherever you view the eclipse, eye safety must be your biggest concern. Looking at the sun unfiltered — even for an instant — can cause permanent eye damage or blindness. Never view the sun or partial eclipse phases with the naked eye, sunglasses, neutral density glass, double thickness of darkened film, smoked glass or other homemade filters .
You can find safe solar filters in the "Resources" section of eclipse.aas.org, but with only two weeks until the eclipse, you may find that suppliers are running out.
Now, if you'll be standing within the path of totality, you'll need filters only during the partial phases before and after totality, and you must remove all filters during totality , or you'll miss the main show!
There are ways to view the partial phases indirectly as well. One technique is to make a pinhole projector. Punch a pinhole in a piece of aluminum foil. Do not look through the hole at the sun, but rather use it to project an image of the sun onto a shaded sheet of paper a few inches or a foot away. The projected image will be tiny but perfectly safe to view without filters.
For even more fun, check with your local planetarium, science museum or amateur astronomy club to see where they'll be set up that day for free public viewing through properly filtered telescopes or binoculars.
What you see and when you see it will depend on your location. To determine the times and other details about the eclipse for your area, visit timeanddate.com and click on "Sun, Moon & Space." Here, you'll see a link to the April solar eclipse. Best of all, you can enter your city and see exactly what the show will look like from your location.
If you plan to journey to the path of totality, keep in mind that tens of millions of other eclipse chasers from around the world will be doing the same. Lodging along the eclipse path is pretty well gone by now, and traffic will be quite congested in the most popular areas, so be sure to allow yourself a few extra days before and after April 8.
To learn more about this eclipse — where and how to view it safely, weather forecasts for that date, detailed tips for viewing and photographing the event, resources you can use and more — visit these popular websites: eclipse2024.org, greatamericaneclipse.com and eclipse.aas.org.
Next week, I'll offer some tips for those who'd like to try to photograph the eclipse safely.
Visit Dennis Mammana at dennismammana.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at creators.com.
Photo courtesy of Dennis Mammana
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