How to safely view Thursday’s solar eclipse
If you wake up early enough on Thursday, and take some precautions, you will be able to see a partial eclipse of the sun in progress. It’s not exactly a rare event, but an impressive one, says Mount Allison astronomer Catherine Lovekin.
Hear Catherine Lovekin in conversation on Tantramar Report:
Barring cloudy skies, Thursday’s annular solar eclipse, “will be visible as a partial eclipse from Sackville,” says Lovekin. “So we’re not in the path of totality—as total as it gets for an annular eclipse—but it is going to be visible as a partial eclipse. The caveat there is that it starts very, very early. And so the eclipse is over by about 7:30, 7:45 in the morning. So you’re going to have to get up super early.”
Lovekin says if it’s not in progress when the sun rises it will start soon after. “If you’re out there about 6 o’clock in the morning you will get a good view,” says Lovekin.
But that view should come with serious precautions. “It’s really, really important not to look at the sun,” says Lovekin.
Because so much of the sun is blocked out during an eclipse, it seems less bright, which means your instinct to avert your eyes will not kick in. “It doesn’t hurt your eyes immediately like it normally does if you look at the sun,” says Lovekin, “but it’s still so bright, it can cause serious eye damage if you look at it for more than a second or two.”… Continue