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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!
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?
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.
That's not true. There's a total eclipse in December.
Perhaps you mean in the US? Also not true, as one will hit Hawaii in Oct 2004.
Teenagers these days don't have as much sex as they want each other to think they do.
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...
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.