Tips on Solar Safety

If you're lucky enough to experience a solar eclipse, take precautions when viewing the sun. Among the safe options:

• Go to the nearest planetarium, science center, university or telescope store. They may have telescopes and binoculars set up with the proper solar filters.
• Use pinhole projection. Make a pinhole through a piece of cardboard and hold it one meter away from another piece of cardboard or paper. See Quick & Easy at the Exploratorium eclipse site.
• Use optical projection. Binoculars or a telescope can be used to project a magnified image of the sun onto a sheet of white paper. Make sure no one looks directly at the sun through the binoculars or telescope.

For direct viewing, these are safe:

• Eclipse glasses with filters that are specifically designed for solar viewing, like this:
• Shade #14 welder's glass
• CDs with thick aluminum coatings. Light can't go through them, but the optical quality will be poor.

These are NOT safe:

• CDs with thin aluminum coatings (light passes through them)
• Most exposed film
• Smoked glass
• Sunglasses

Other tips on solar safety can be found at this NASA site. If in doubt, don't use it.