03/27/2024

How to Safely Watch the Total Eclipse

Understand what looking at the eclipse could do to your eyes

The first solar eclipse I had a chance to witness I in fact didn’t witness at all. It was July 20, 1963, and I was attending Camp Comet in Waynesboro, Pa. The camp’s owners and counselors—not to mention, our parents—wanted nothing to do with the prospect of 150 literally wide-eyed boys staring directly at the sun as the moon partly obscured it. So they kept us inside our geodesic-dome-shaped bunks and draped blankets over the windows until the danger had passed.

From a safety perspective, that, in fact, was not a bad precaution. That’s because there is a lot of damage the sun can do to the retina of the eye as the eclipse approaches and then passes totality—and that damage can affect your vision for life. So, if you’d like to bear witness to a celestial event that will not touch the U.S. mainland again until Aug. 23, 2044, while at the same time protecting your eyes and preserving your sight, here’s how best to observe the upcoming April 8 total eclipse.

What looking at the eclipse does to your eyes

The good news is the most transcendent and transformative part of a total solar eclipse takes place in the relatively brief period of totality, when the disk of the moon is completely covering the disk of the sun. During these few minutes it’s safe to look up with unprotected eyes and take it all in. The bad news is that matter of brevity: The longest the April 8 eclipse will last as the path of totality tracks from Texas to New England will be just shy of 4.5 minutes, over portions of Texas. In other cities, the duration of totality will be less than that. But the hours that will unfold before and after that moment, when the sun is first reduced to a steadily shrinking crescent and then reappears as a growing one, are perilous.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.