Clip: Season 51 | 1m 59s | Video has closed captioning.
Looking at the sun without eclipse glasses, even when 99% of the Sun is covered by the Moon, can cause retinal damage in your eye. Here’s the science behind why, and how you can protect your eyes.
Aired: 04/01/24
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- A big eclipse is coming up, but if you're thinking about checking it out, you need to use protection because the light from the sun can basically fry your eyeballs.
The human eye has a lens which helps to focus light onto an area at the back of the eye called the retina, which is packed with light-sensitive cells.
If you look directly at the sun, even during much of the eclipse, the lens in your eye would focus a powerful beam of intense light onto your retina, which can easily burn the cells and even leave a permanent blind spot.
The retina doesn't have pain receptors, so there's a real possibility of badly damaging your eyes and not even realizing it until it's too late.
It can be really tempting to look at the sun when the moon is partially blocking the sun's light, but that can damage your eyes too.
Looking at the sun without eclipse glasses, even when 99% of the sun is covered by the moon, can cause retinal burns.
The only way to view the partial solar eclipse safely is with ISO-approved solar viewing glasses or with solar filters, which will block out the harmful UV light emitted by the sun.
The glasses must meet the international safety standard, ISO 12312-2.
But if you wanna look at the eclipse through a camera, binoculars, or a telescope, watch out.
Special glasses will not protect your eyes from the magnified light.
- Even if you're wearing certified solar viewing glasses, you cannot look through a telescope with them unless there is a telescopic solar filter on the telescope itself.
- A telescope can focus the light from the sun to such an intense degree that it will burn right through the protective filters of eclipse glasses.
If you're lucky enough to be in the path of totality, then once the moon completely covers the disc of the sun that only the Sun's corona is visible, then, and only then, can you take off the protective glasses and look at the total eclipse.
When the moon starts to slide off the sun again, you need to protect your eyes right away.
If you're planning on checking out the eclipse, which you totally should, make sure to use precautions and protect your eyeballs.
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