The Annular Eclipse

Will you be checking out the upcoming annular eclipse?  If so, you’ve probably heard all the safety warnings about not looking directly at the Sun. They’re good advice. When I was a kid I remember some eclipses occurring and being told not to look at the Sun. Of course, I did.  Luckily, I didn’t get any severe eye damage — but it’s worth saying again that even a little sungazing without proper protection is too much. So, if you’ve got eclipse glasses, use ’em!  There’s no substitute for safety.

If you’re planning on viewing the eclipse, check here or here for the latest info on where the path of totality is, and what you can expect to see.

The joint JAXA/NASA Hinode mission will also observe the eclipse and provide images and movies that will be available on the NASA website.  Due to Hinode’s orbit around the Earth, Hinode will actually observe 4 separate partial eclipses. Scientists often use an eclipse to help calibrate the instruments on the telescope by focusing in on the edge of the moon as it crosses the sun and measuring how sharp it appears in the images. As an added bonus, the satellite’s x-ray telescope will be able to provide images of the peaks and valleys of the lunar surface silhouetted against the glow of the solar corona.

You may be wondering what an annular eclipse is. It’s simply an eclipse where the Moon’s apparent size isn’t big enough to cover the Sun as the Moon moves between Earth and the Sun. It only covers a portion of the Sun. For people in the path of totality, they’ll see a ring of light around the Moon. Those not in the path will see only a part of the Sun’s light blocked. No matter what portion you see, though, the sunlight will be too bright to look directly at the event.

That’s why you need eye protection — and by that, I mean more than sunglasses. You need eclipse shades. Your local planetarium or science center may have them, so if you’re planning to watch the eclipse, check it out.

You can also watch the eclipse via pinhole projection — that is, shining light from the Sun through a pinhole in a piece paper — and letting it shine onto a wall or another piece of paper. The image on the second surface will show you the eclipsed Sun.  It’s just about foolproof! For more details on that, check out this page from the Exploratorium.   Whatever you do, have a safe solar eclipse viewing experience. It’ll be good practice for the Transit of Venus in June!