Beware: Eye safety tips for total solar eclipse watchers

Excited as you may be to witness the wonder of the total eclipse of today, Monday, April 8, 2024 in parts of the Mexico and United States of America (USA), experts have warned of risks of severe eye injury to any one who attempts to view the phenomenon directly with their naked eyes or through a camera lens, binoculars, or a telescope without a special-purpose solar filter secured over the front of the optics.

According to the experts, “when watching a partial or annular solar eclipse directly with your eyes, you must look through safe solar viewing glasses (‘eclipse glasses’) or a safe handheld solar viewer at all times.”

They warn that “Eclipse glasses are NOT regular sunglasses.

“Always inspect your eclipse glasses or handheld viewer before use; if torn, scrattched, or otherwise damaged, discard the device. Always supervise children using solar viewers.

“If you don’t have eclipse glasses glasses or a handheld solar viewer, you can use an indirect viewing method, by using a pinhole projector, which has a small opening (for example, a hole punched in an index card) and projects an image of the Sun onto a nearby surface. With the Sun at your back, you can then safely view the projected image. DO NOT  look at the Sun through the pinhole!”

Some schools in the New Jersey area are said to have given their pupils and students eclipse/solar viewing glasses for the spectacle that happens once in a long time.

In some cities of Mexico and the US, especially in New York, New Jersey but especially so in Texas, there are eclipse parties going on with huge crowds of people gathering to experience these moments that they would not see again till 2044. The Moon will pass in front of the Sun and completely block its light. Total eclipses only last for a few minutes and occur within a narrow band of space.