It all depends on what you are doing with your hands whilst you are looking at the Sun. 
Also, while only the western states of the US will be able to see the total eclipse in 2012, folks all over the US will want to have their eclipse glasses at the ready that year, on June 6, for the transit of Venus. This isn’t just a matter of protecting your eyes; you just about can’t see Venus in the glare without protection. Don’t miss it, kids; this is literally a twice-in-a-lifetime event, and the first time was last year…
I was excited to think that we would be able to see an eclipse here in the Western US in 2012. When I looked it up, however (NASA ), I was disappointed to see that it will be an annular eclipse. I saw one of those in Toronto in the middle 90’s and while interesting, it was nothing like a total eclipse.
If we can wait another 5 years, though, there is a total eclipse that will be visible across much of North America in August of 2017.
Cecil should have mentioned that it is completely safe to look directly at the sun during the totality period of a total eclipse. I have seen three eclipses so far, including the big one in Mexico in 1991, when I looked directly at the (eclipsed) disk of the sun for nearly seven minutes. The problem comes when people attempt to look at the sun before or after totality: the sun’s brightness is so great that even when only a few % of the surface is exposed it can cause the damage described in the article.
Will Starling At A Solar Eclipse Make You Go Blind?
Is that an African, or European Starling?
Clarice, of course…hehehe…
I don’t have anything to add about eclipses, or opthamology.
I just have a (silly) question for the artist who drew the caricature accompanying the article: Look at the legs --why do the knees have nipples???
(sorry,… but I’m just curious)
Carry on.
In either 1969 or 1970, I performed the said feat. Except. . .it was a partial one and I ended up cooking part of my foveae. Never told anyone, because I felt so embarrassed for reasons you shall see, so to speak.
Was I an idiot? :smack: Did I know better? :smack: :smack: Did I know better then anyone else? :smack: :smack: :smack: I knew more about astronomy and the moon-shot material then any of my grade school teachers (they would call on me to answer those questions in class). And enjoying the glory of being Mr. Know-It-All, I sternly warned the people in my class before the impending event, not to look at the sun during this eclipse, but to use a pinhole in thin cardboard.
Damage wasn’t all that much and never interfered with any eye tests (I was 20/20 in my “blinded eye” for years). The main effect of this has been (other than still being mortified), whenever I look at the screen with my right eye while the left one is closed, the words typically shift down about 1/2 way or split into two. Kind of like gravitational lensing. But my forgiving brain has compensated for it-like the eye’s blind spot, I don’t notice it unless I try to look for it.
Old cartoon convention. I don’t know when it originated.
I, for one, was very disappointed with an omission in Cecil’s article. Yes, it’s dangerous to look directly at the Sun during a (non-total) eclipse. That is true. But many people erroneously think that the Sun during an eclipse is somehow more dangerous than at other times, and Cecil’s article not only failed to refute that misconception, but possibly even encouraged it with the reference to “scores of injuries resulting from the solar eclipse visible in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia on August 11, 1999.”. If more solar eye injuries occur during an eclipse, that’s just because more people are looking at the Sun during that time, not because the eclipse is inherently any more dangerous. It’s just as dangerous to look directly at the Sun at any other time, or even more so, since staring at a non-eclipsed Sun would damage a greater area of the retina.
Yes, I was surprised at how incomplete and misleading Cecil’s response was.
Looking at the sun = looking at the sun. Period. It doesn’t matter whether or not there’s an eclipse in progress. The sun’s rays are entering your eyeball regardless of the position of the moon; these rays are no more dangerous during an eclipse than at any other time. And eclipse-related solar retinopathy is no different than any other solar retinopathy.
But the only time it **is **safe to stare at the sun is during the total phase of an eclipse. During totality, you’re seeing the corona, not the sun itself.
I really expected Cecil to be more thorough than that.
I don’t agree. With a partially eclipsed sun, the iris is opened more allowing more light through and greater damage in a shorter time. While it’s true that a smaller area is damaged during partial eclipse, there will be some protection from a closed down iris while looking at full sun. Bottom line, there is less total light entering the eye during partial eclipse, therefore the iris opens more, but the intensity of the light at any given point on the retina is the same as with full sun (actually greater due to the open iris), so damage is more likely.
I also agree with you, and others, that Cecil missed an important opportunity to help eradicate the misconception about looking at a fully eclipsed sun.
A point, but is this effect really significant? Even a mostly-eclipsed sun (say, 75% occluded) is still going to provide a level of ambient lighting far greater than, say, a brightly lit room. I would expect that in either case, the pupil is at close to maximum contraction. And of course, there are a number of other factors which will influence level of ambient light, including how many clouds there are of what type and the color of one’s surroundings. Would looking at an eclipse on a bright, high-glare day with snow on the ground be any worse than looking at the full Sun on a gloomy day surrounded by mud?
I witnessed a partial solar eclipse in Arizona in the early 90’s. I only glanced directly at the sun twice, and for hours afterwards had two blue sickle-shaped afterimages in my eyesight. I was very happy when they finally dissipated…had me concerned there for a while. I would never do it again.
The neat part was that during this ecplise, it was possible to stand outside in early afternoon without sunglasses and there was no need to squint, altho it was not discernably “darker” to me.
No, but crowing during a lunar eclipse will make you go horse.
(ba-da-bump. Thanks. I’ll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.)
I think this supports my point, Chronos, that you have a more hazardous situation during partial phases, particularly late partial phases, of a solar eclipse. I have looked at the sun many times without hours of afterimage. Indeed, when I was a kid I looked at the sun through binoculars (on a stupid dare) for several seconds with no damage - though the image is burned into my brain to this day!
Oh, you may be right, flex727. Certainly, a more dilated pupil would make looking at the Sun (however much of it is exposed) more dangerous. I’d just like to see a cite (as opposed to an annecdote; sorry, TeeBee) that this effect is significant.
From the question:
How many total solar eclipses did Ottawa experience during this guy’s education? Surely he meant total, or near total, eclipses, or you wouldn’t need the world’s smartest human to tell you not to look at it.
Bumped because the article is back on the SD front page (a little late for the recent total eclipse visible in much of the U.S.).