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Partial Solar Eclipse Tonight
grouchomarxist writes "There is going to be a partial solar eclipse tonight. It will mainly be visible by people in the southwest of the United States. People in Mexico will have the best view, there it will approach a full eclipse." Space.com has a nice page on it too. Enjoy this solar event!
There will not be another one until 2012, so you might want to check this one out.
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
Actually, doing so can burn your retina so fast you won't know you are blind. Your retina has no pain receptors, so that's why its especially important not to look. In some cases, blindness set in slowly over a period of up to 6 hours after viewing an eclipse. It's better to poke a pinhole in a piece of paper, and then look at the shadow the paper casts on the ground. You should see the eclipse fairly well and safely... provided you are west of the Rockies anyway.
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
Are you an idiot? Try it and let us know how that works for you.
Actually my father in-law looked at it as a child and now his glassses are pretty thick due to that fact. No one else in his family needs glasses either
A rather spectacular image from a 1992 annular eclipse (the name given to this type of eclipse) can be found at APOD today.
Check here for some more information. It's got a "graph" which shows where it will be visible, and how much of the eclipse you'll see for your particular location.
My other SIG is a 9mm.
follow the link here for more info and a nice map of what you expect to see the eclipse time is ~6PM PST, which mean the sun is FAR from set -- at the bay area, anyway, the sun does not set till ~9 and don't stare at it! 2 good ways to look at the eclipse 1) bioculars / telescope reflected on paper 2) get a bucket of water, tint the water (ink, whatever) and look at the reflection (used to do this in low-tech China)
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Teenagers these days don't have as much sex as they want each other to think they do.
I always post this, but the best eclipse web site is at http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
i saw the full eclipse last year (in bulgaria) and will definitely have my smoked glass for tonight's
You might want to re-think that smoked glass. According to NASA, "Unsafe filters include color film, some non-silver black and white film, medical x-ray films with images on them, smoked glass, photographic neutral density filters and polarizing filters."
Of course if my response doesn't reach you in time, you won't be able to read it anyway.
"And like that
It is a bad idea to look directly at the sun without
l
protecting your eyes in some fashion.
It is possible to look with the naked eye if the
viewers eyes have already had a chance to adjust to
the brightness of the day, and the exposure is
kept short. (Something I experienced as a less
clueful youth)...
BUT, Even then some minor damage is likely to occur,
with symptoms that may not show up until later on
(something I am probably going to learn about as I get older).
IMO, the likelyhood of damage from looking at an eclipse is
made greater because the viewers eyes do not have the natural
feedback of ambient daylight to adjust to before looking in the
direction of the Sun. Instead they will probably try to adjust
to the lessening of reflected light in the environment, and
the effect you will get would be similar to someone turning on a
very bright light when you are in a darkened room; without
the benefit of being able to close your eyes.
Thru google I found:
http://www.hermit.org/Eclipse/what_observe.shtm
which appears to be a pretty good sight for advice on properly
viewing an eclipse. (I do disagree that even looking at a
total eclipse can be safe, because humans don't have very good
timing for knowing when to look away again from totality).
I too am looking forward to seeing this eclipse if I can, but
please do be careful...
From Space.com as noted in the original article, 14-shade welding goggles are said to be adequate. IANAW so I'm not sure if 12 is darker than 14 or not. Also they mention that even with these shades, you should not look at it for more than 10 seconds anyway...
This is funny. I got a degree in astronomy and did a few years of volunteer work at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago. I'm always amazed at how often this question is asked. I remember as a kid being deathly afraid to look up during an eclipse thinking that there were some evil death rays that only came out during an eclipse that would turn me into a zombie or something [I think that was a bad movie I saw once...]
The answer is no, the sun is no worse for your eyes during an eclipse, it's just that most people (Galileo excluded) aren't stupid enough to look at the sun when the moon's not partially in front of it so there's no need to warn them on a daily basis.
obligitory warning: Oh and by the way...please don't try to prove me wrong (or right) by looking at the sun today or any other day. It ain't good for your eyes.
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
Sky and Telescope always have the best data for these kinds of questions.
They have a diagram of the ground track and a timetable giving cities and times of the event.
You absolutely need a filter. If you don't use one no matter how you set up yor camcorder, you are goung to get a CCD "paté". Find any filter, you dont necesarily need to buy one, but if you love your cam i recommend you get anything.
...
Even an adapted filter from another model will do the trick, but don't go the un-filtered
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
I have #12s and they seem to work ok. keep_it, you're right
about not looking too long anyway, welding goggles don't
filter all the UV that you need filtered, although they do
take care of most of the visible spectrum, and one can still
damage one's retina. RETINA DAMAGE IS PERMANENT. I KNOW.
Note that it also does NOT mean you can use welders goggles of
any kind to view thru binoculars or small telescopes.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.