The next great eclipse is upon us, with viewers across North America witnessing the moon passing in front of the Sun. It’s an amazing experience, but also an opportunity to do science. Let’s talk about what we can learn from this momentous event.

Transcript

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Fraser Cain [00:01:04] Astronomy Cast episodes 715. How to watch a total solar eclipse and do some science. Welcome to Astronomy Cast for weekly, facts based journey through the cosmos, where we help you understand not only what we know, but how we know what we know. I’m Fraser Cain, I’m the publisher of Universe Today. With me, as always, is Doctor Pamela Gay, a senior scientist for the Planetary Science Institute and the director of Cosmic Quest. IPam, how are you doing?

Pamela Gay [00:01:26] I am doing much better than last week, and I would like to say to everyone who stuck through it. Thank you. While we were trying to record that episode, everything on my screen was flashing red and I have to give a special thanks and a special shout out to Richard Drumm, our editor for hiding most of the chaos that was returning and to our patrons who allow us to pay him. It turns out that our local fiber trunk was in the process of being sliced through while we were recording the episode, and about ten minutes after we were done with like, fighting the internet gods to keep things going. All internet was lost for about 24 hours. Local construction. The message we got from our provider was fabulous. It was a third party doing construction sliced through the fiber trunk. Oh, we don’t know when it will be fixed. It was the most passive aggressive. Wonderful. And thank you all for your patience. Thank you, Rich, so much. And patrons, you’re the ones that allow us to keep going and have as close to excellent as we can get. When I’m distracted by red flashing lights as possible episodes when all the red lights are flashing. Thank you, thank you, all of you.

Fraser Cain [00:02:49] Yeah, any episode would have been twice as long with us troubleshooting live during the episode. Is it you? Is it me? Is it the YouTube? No. YouTube? Yeah, yeah. It turns out your fiber connection was being degraded in real time while we were attempting to do the episode. I’m amazed we got through it as much as you did, because, yeah, you sent me a text message maybe 15 minutes after we closed, like, well, we’re all offline, and it was a disaster, so. I’m amazed.

Pamela Gay [00:03:23] So thank you, everyone.

Fraser Cain [00:03:25] All right. The next great eclipse is upon us, with viewers across North America witnessing the moon passing in front of the sun. It’s an amazing experience, but also an opportunity to do some science. Let’s talk about what we can learn from this momentous event, and how to maximize your chance of getting it in your eyeballs. All right, Pamela, you are a veteran eclipse hunter. How many total solar eclipses have you witnessed in all of your years of chasing after eclipses?

Pamela Gay [00:03:58] Zero.

Fraser Cain [00:03:58] Zero.

Pamela Gay [00:04:00] The running joke is you want to be anywhere but near me.

Fraser Cain [00:04:04] That’s my plan this year.

Pamela Gay [00:04:06] Yeah, yeah. So the two of us were both vaguely together for 2017. I was I on the floor of the stadium in Carbondale. And you were out in the observing field in Carbondale? Yep. And I had a slightly bigger than the sun sized cloud go in front of the sun just at totality, and you got to see totality.

Fraser Cain [00:04:30] I but I got maybe five seconds of totality right at the.

Pamela Gay [00:04:35] You’re still seeing it.

Fraser Cain [00:04:37] I guess I have.

Pamela Gay [00:04:37] Not yet saw Corona. I have never seen Corona.

Fraser Cain [00:04:40] Yeah, I guess I. I’m going to still say that I saw zero. Oh, but but but you. But you’ve tried a few times now. So yeah. Each time you get to that. Yeah. All right. And so I think this, this is going to cast a long shadow, pardon the pun, over our recommendation. So, so we’re going to get into the science with this. But but first I think it’s really important for us to just give general advice about about how to maximize your chances of getting the best experience for the total solar eclipse, if you’re going to be in the eclipse, and I’m like 30 million people in North America live under the path, just live. You step outside, look up, you will see the eclipse. And then there’s all the people that are coming from elsewhere, like me, like you, to try and get under the eclipse path. So first step one, let’s just talk about safety because it’s absolutely critical.

Pamela Gay [00:05:38] Yes, I a lot of people have a lot of misinformation. If you’re going to try and use welding glass, it has to be 14 or higher. So the myth that you can just use a welding visor is, is like on Rotten Tomatoes where they’re like, there is a grain of truth in there somewhere, but it’s not true. Right. It’s it’s much more a case of you have to have level 14 or higher. The best thing to do is to not try and get yourself welding glasses. They’re heavy, they’re thick. They cost a whole lot of money. Instead, get yourself a pair of ISO certified eclipse glasses.

Fraser Cain [00:06:21] So the, the, the American Astronomical Society has a page where they describe vendors. You can buy them on Amazon. Still you’re looking for the ISO certified.

Pamela Gay [00:06:34] Yes.

Fraser Cain [00:06:35] Look, you know, I mean, I know it’s really tricky to buy stuff on Amazon, especially last minute. There’s a lot of people are going to try and sell stuff. People are freaking out about fakes. I wouldn’t be that concerned with it. And there’s some tests that you can do when you get the glasses that you can just double check to make sure that they are good enough. So how do you do that?

Pamela Gay [00:06:55] So. It’s AI unless it’s ISO certified. I can’t say where I might get sued that you can see if it’s safe or not, because at home no one has the stuff to see if it’s ISO certified. What you can do is is the basic make sure it doesn’t have any pinholes in it. Yeah. Make sure that it doesn’t have any scratches. And holding your glasses up to a very bright light is a good step one. Yeah. Step two is to hold them up to the sun and not have them plastered up against your eyes, but sort of like, okay, does that look entirely dark? Because I’m looking at it. Yeah. Yeah, it’s tricky story, but the main goal is you shouldn’t be able to see any bright light through your glasses.

Fraser Cain [00:07:47] Exactly. And anecdotally in the chat, I’ve seen that Walmart has plenty of them. And I think that’s a good way to go because if this late in the game now, if you’re going to try to go to Amazon then yeah you might get a pair. That’s not great. But if you just go to Walmart or whatever, and as long it says ISO certified, that is the that’s the code word that you’re looking for. That will mean that these glasses are the right level of darkening for you to be able to see it. Target.

Pamela Gay [00:08:15] Rainbow Symphony Online is where I would go, actually. You can still get them from Rainbow Symphony and their stuff’s ISO certified.

Fraser Cain [00:08:21] Okay, yeah. So ISO certified. That’s really looking for from any of these places. Just it should have written on it ISO certified and then you’re good to go. All right. So that’s the safety thing. But there’s more nuance to this because you can look at the sun and in fact you get the best experience when you do look at the sun. But but there is a timing thing. So explain when it’s unsafe to look at the sun and when is it safe to look at the sun?

Pamela Gay [00:08:48] The only time it is safe to look at the sun without an eclipse viewer, or using a safe solar viewer of some sort is during totality. There are apps that you can get that will play a sound...

Ep. 715: Total Eclipse of the Science: Experiments During the Eclipse