The August 21st solar eclipse is fast approaching, which means time is running out to get ready for the event. I’ve already said how important the right protective eyewear is and I’ll say it again: If you don’t use ISO 12312-2 certified eye protection to watch the eclipse you’ll damage your eyes and may go blind. Eye protection that meets the ISO standard is getting harder to find with the eclipse only days away, but the American Astronomical Society has an awesome list of glasses and retailers that may have them on its website. If you don’t have your eclipse glasses yet this is a handy resource to track some down before next Monday.
Check It Out: Here’s Where to Find Protective Eyewear for the Solar Eclipse
I am going to use my sextant which has a sun filter for its telescope.
Another way, something I’ve mentioned before is a pinhole projector. Pegboard, a piece of cardboard with a hole in it, even a colander will work. Let the sun shine through it onto some surface, concrete, etc. Each little dot will be an image of the sun, complete with the bite taken out of it by the moon. You need a bit of distance between the hole and the surface, general rule 100-200 times the diameter of the hole, but it works very well and is perfectly safe. I especially recommend it to people watching the eclipse with children. Gets them looking DOWN at the image, not UP at the sun where they can hurt their eyes.
Also, If you want to use solar glasses, they do work. I’ll be using a pair from Celestron. You can even tape them over the objective end (the big end pointing toward the sun) of binoculars. DO NOT use them between binoculars and your eye. The binoculars concentrate too much light and will overload the glasses, possibly melting them followed almost instantly by frying your retina. Also the heat can damage the binoculars.
By the way this will be my eighth solar eclipse. I think this one will put me over the 20 minute mark in totality.