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Partial Solar Eclipse Coming to N.America

Posted by timothy on from the partial-blindness dept.

mblase writes: "Space.com has the goods on the upcoming June 10 partial solar eclipse, the only North American eclipse this decade. Greater eclipsing occurs in the South, and Midwesterners and Texans will get the best show when maximum eclipsing occurs near sunset, when the sun appears largest. A good excuse to teach any young children you know some basic astronomy. (Remember, use pinhole cameras, never look directly at the sun, yadda yadda yadda.)"

22 comments

  1. Sun Spotters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    The sun is much too bright to look at directly. So how can you see it? In this activity, you'll build a pinhole projector. It will let you see the sun safely.

    1. Go outside on a sunny day. Find a place where the sun is not blocked by trees or buildings.

    2. Use the push pin to poke a little round hole in one piece of paper.

    3. Hand the paper with the hole to an adult. Ask the adult to turn his or her back to the sun. Then, ask the adult to hold up the paper and move it around until the sun is shining directly through the hole in the paper. Do not look directly at the sun! (See the illustration to the right.)

    4. Pick up the second piece of paper. Hold it up so that the sunlight that is shining through the hole shines directly onto your paper.

    The small round image you see on your paper is... an image of the sun! If the image is too small, move back a little. The farther back you stand, the bigger the image will be.

    Never look directly at the sun. It can blind you! Check your binoculars to be sure they don't heat up as you use them to project the sun.

    Want to see the sun more clearly? Here's what to do:

    1. Put your binoculars with the big side of the lenses face down on one piece of paper. Trace around the lenses. Cut out the two circles you traced.

    2. Push the lenses through the holes so that the binoculars are wearing a construction paper mask.

    3. Go outside. Ask an adult to hold the binoculars so that the sun shines directly through the paper mask, then through the eyeholes, and then onto the ground. (See the illustration to the left). Do not look through the binoculars.

    4. Put the dark colored sheet of construction paper on the ground so that the images of the sun are shining onto the paper. You should see two nice, clear images of the sun's surface. Your adult helper can move the binoculars back and forth or adjust the focus to make the picture clearer.

    Hint: Wear sunglasses!

    The next solar eclipse will occur on December 25th, 2000. The sun will appear to change shape as the moon moves between it and the Earth. People across the United States will be able to see a partial eclipse. Use your solar projector to watch as the moon "takes a bite" out of the sun!

    1. Re:Sun Spotters by Mondrames · · Score: 1

      Just for consitency the AC yanked the activity from this site - Which is the second link in the article

      Credit where credit is due.

  2. Pinhole Viewers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    But Mommy do I have to?

    The view of the eclipse through a pin hole sucks! All the cool kids get to burn their retinas. Why can't I?

    1. Re:Pinhole Viewers by masterkool · · Score: 0

      If you look through the window of a car, it blocks most radiation and UV rays. You can even look at an atomic bomb test through them, if you don't melt first. I think it was Richard Feynmann who allways did this during the early A-Bomb tests

      --
      I once shot a man who posted too many, "Imagine a beowulf cluster of these"
  3. Floppy Diskettes by karnal · · Score: 3, Funny

    I've always used 3 1/2" diskettes for this task, and it hasn't killed my eyes yet. (Although, you can never be too careful.)

    I just slide back the dust cover, and look at the sun through the magnetic media portion of the diskette. Voila - perfect picture, and your eyes don't hurt.

    Gotta wonder about the UV rays though.... ???

    --
    Karnal
    1. Re:Floppy Diskettes by Pentagon13 · · Score: 1

      Great suggestion! I never thought of that. I have always used three or four layers worth of film negatives stacked on each other, which probably yields similar results to a floppy disk. I never quite understood the pinhole way so this was a simple alternative.

    2. Re:Floppy Diskettes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      Yeah, that pinhole shit is some pretty complicated high-tech stuff. I wouldn't expect the average slashdotter to understand it.

      The best thing is clear glass. I know this sounds like a bad idea, but the glass stops the dangerous ultraviolet rays while passing only the visible color range. This will give you a good view of the eclipse without any worry about your retinas. At first it's kind of hard to look directly at the sun, even through the clear glass, but you can watch the eclipse this way for as long as you want.

      Just be careful with the glass. If you drop it, you might break it and cut yourself.

    3. Re:Floppy Diskettes by heneon · · Score: 2, Funny

      Diskettes are so.... 2001's! Couple of years ago I was fortunate to see total solar eclipse, and I used CDs. If it has got lot of clear surface on the label side (e.g. NT 4 installation cd) it works great!

    4. Re:Floppy Diskettes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I know this sounds like a bad idea, but the glass stops the dangerous ultraviolet rays while passing only the visible color range.

      you're a fucking moron....

  4. Look under a tree for cool efect! by zulux · · Score: 3, Informative

    Last eclipse, I happened to be looking at the ground under a leafy tree. The tree and it's leaves created bunches of little pin-hole lenses and cast tons of little crecent images of the partially-eclipsed sun on the ground. Worth looking for.

    --

    Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

    1. Re:Look under a tree for cool efect! by mgarraha · · Score: 1

      In 1994 I happened to encounter a group of school children during a partial eclipse. The clouds parted, and on cue from their teacher, all of them whipped out little pinhole cameras they had made from sheets of paper! Now that was a sight I won't forget.

    2. Re:Look under a tree for cool efect! by Tackhead · · Score: 2
      > In 1994 I happened to encounter a group of school children during a partial eclipse. The clouds parted, and on cue from their teacher, all of them whipped out little pinhole cameras they had made from sheets of paper! Now that was a sight I won't forget.

      I will never forgive the high school teacher who drew the drapes in my class during an eclipse because some st00pid-azz kid convinced said ignoramus of a "teacher" that "eclipse rays can blind you, you've gotta close the drapes!"

      At least my high school physics teacher, who, when I told him the story, gave the aforementioned luzer a righteous chewing-out in the staff lounge (regrettably, after-the-fact, and even more regrettably, I couldn't listen to it), will never have to pay for a beer if he's ever in the same bar I am.

      I had to wait another 10 years before I got to see a near-total eclipse again.

      If you see a teacher and a group of kids with pinhole cameras during an eclipse, thank him/her for doing the right thing.

  5. Too bad about the next N.America eclipse... by bopo · · Score: 3, Funny
    The next solar eclipse visible across this much of North America will occur in 2012.

    Let's hope it happens before December 22, 2012. Otherwise we'll all probably be too busy fighting shapeshifting bounty hunters and supersoldiers to notice.

    Oh well.

    --
    "Understand you're having a little Jimmy Page trouble."
  6. Welding Shades by mgarraha · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Diskettes transmit too much IR and provide an inferior image, according to this Sky and Telescope article by Ralph Chou, a professor of optometry. Don't fool around, get a #14 shade from a welding supply shop. They're cheap, convenient, and reliable. Mine is a 4x5-inch plate of black ceramic material that turns the Sun a lime green color. When I bought it, the guys at the shop said, "Yeah, we got a few of those left over from the last eclipse. Nobody uses 'em for welding, they're too dark!"

    1. Re:Welding Shades by Transcendent · · Score: 1

      better yet, get a sun lenz for a telescope..... its made for looking at the sun and it wont change it to any funky color.

  7. Last eclipse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was standing outside, don't think I had forwarning of the eclipse. Began to feel uneasy, something was different and strange but subtle enough that I could not determine what was making me feel uneasy. I looked at the ground..the patio was a sea of crescents of all sizes, moving to and fro with the breeze. Looking around, i saw them on the house, every place that lie in partial shadow. I nearly shit my pants.

  8. I dare you.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To take a pic with your digital camera. :)

  9. Don't look directly at the sun.. by rhetland · · Score: 1

    Really, don't look directly at the sun....

  10. A Dragon Ate the Sun? by Kettleboy · · Score: 1

    ...the only North American eclipse this decade
    I seem to recall a solar eclipse that occured on Dec 25, 2000 that was partially visible from N. America.
    Technically, that was in the current decade. P.

    --
    Enjoy your life, it's the only one you've got!
    1. Re:A Dragon Ate the Sun? by anothy · · Score: 2

      nope.
      just as the 21st century started at midnight, jan 1, 2001, so did the current decade. december of 2000 was part of the previous century/millenium/decade. thanks to the stupid roman catholics for creating a numbering system starting at 1 instead of 0. it's dumb, but it's what we've got.

      --

      i speak for myself and those who like what i say.