Everybody’s getting all hot and bothered about the total eclipse, but you won’t be able to simply run outside and stare at the sun as it’s obscured by the moon Monday. You’ll need to be prepared, or your eyes will be burning along with your curiosity.
The scariest part about this is that “there’s no pain receptors at the back of the eye, so you have no way of knowing if you have damaged the back of the eye” by looking directly at the sun, said retired optometrist (and active eclipse chaser) Ralph Chou in a NOVA video on eclipse safety.
You won’t know it until it’s too late because you won’t feel it, but you will damage your eyes if you look at the eclipse without the proper protection. Severe sun damage to your eyes can cause blindness.
What you need to watch the eclipse safely
You need eclipse glasses (those cardboard glasses you’ve been seeing around the internet) to keep your eyes safe during eclipse viewing. The glasses must be stamped with “ISO 12312-2,” denoting an international safety standard, in order to be considered sun-safe. If you already have a pair of eclipse glasses, check them for the ISO certification.
Sun-safe eclipse glasses will block blue light and ultra violet light that would hurt your eyes, said Michael Floyd, a Minnesota-based ophthalmologist, in a video made by the Science Museum of Minnesota.
“We… want to block as much light as possible and these block essentially 99.999 percent of light and that will protect your eyes,” he said.
If you don’t yet have eclipse glasses, you might be worrying about getting a pair in time. Because they’re a must-have for eclipse viewing, the specs are sold out in many places. (And Amazon recalled some of the glasses it sold as not sun-safe.) Chou recommended checking out the vendors vouched for by the American Astronomical Society. The glasses sold by these companies are considered eclipse-safe by the AAS.
If you can’t get your hands on those, you can use a welder’s mask with at least a Shade 12 filter to look at the sun. And if it’s too late to track down any of this eyewear, check out the AAS’s how-tos on other methods for watching the eclipse. This goes without saying, but your standard-issue sunglasses are not going to protect your eyes from frying. Leave those at home.
If you’re a photographer…
If you’re planning on taking photos of the eclipse, you need to get a special lens for your camera in order to look through it at the sun. And don’t try to get around this by wearing your sun-safe glasses. Even while wearing your eclipse glasses, your eyes could be damaged if you look at the sun through your camera without a special filter, Floyd said.
The same goes for viewing the eclipse through binoculars or a telescope, he said.
During the eclipse
With so much eye protection (remember those babies block out 99.999 percent of light), you’ll just barely be able to make out the eclipse once you have them on. (But resist the temptation to take them off!)
You’ll only be able to take them off during the few minutes of “totality,” when the moon is completely blocking the sun, Chou said. Once the sun starts peeking out from behind the moon again, pop those bad boys back on, or expect crescent-shaped burns on your eyes (no, seriously).
Learn more about the once-in-a-lifetime total eclipse when “NOVA: Eclipse Over America” premieres Monday, Aug. 21 (the night of the eclipse!). Check your local station’s schedule for broadcast dates and times or stream online at PBS.org.
Katie Moritz
Katie Moritz is Rewire’s web editor and a Pisces who enjoys thrift stores, rock concerts and pho. She covered politics for a newspaper in Juneau, Alaska, before driving down to balmy Minnesota to help produce long-standing public affairs show “Almanac” at Twin Cities PBS. Now she works on this here website. Reach her via email at kmoritz@tpt.org. Follow her on Twitter @katecmoritz and on Instagram @yepilikeit.
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