Safety First
How to Safely View the Solar Eclipse
Watching the 2024 total solar eclipse will be a once-in-a-lifetime event that you don’t want to miss! To make sure you get the most out of your experience, it’s important to follow some basic safety guidelines.
- Eye Protection: Protect your eyes by wearing protective glasses designed specifically for viewing an eclipse – regular sunglasses won’t do the trick! Stand still and cover your eyes with your eclipse glasses or solar viewer before looking up at the bright Sun. Get your commemorative Total Eclipse IN Indiana glasses now.
- Protect Eyes During Entire Viewing: After looking at the Sun, turn away and remove your filter — do not remove it while looking at the Sun.
- No Direct Viewing: Direct viewing of any part of the Sun without protection can cause serious and permanent eye damage. If you don’t have eclipse glasses, use a pinhole camera or indirectly project an image of the Sun onto another surface – both methods are easy and effective ways to safely watch the eclipse without risking your vision. Check out this list of suppliers of safe solar filters and viewers.
- Layering Glasses: If you normally wear eyeglasses, keep them on and put your eclipse glasses on over them, or hold your handheld viewer in front of them.
- Don’t Look Through Unfiltered Devices: Do not look at the uneclipsed, partially eclipsed, or annularly eclipsed Sun through an unfiltered camera, telescope, binoculars, or other optical device.
- Don’t Hack Yourself a “Filtered” Viewer Using Optical Devices: Similarly, do not look at the Sun through a camera, telescope, binoculars, or any other optical device while using your eclipse glasses or handheld solar viewer — the concentrated solar rays could damage the filter and enter your eye(s), causing serious injury.
- Use Solar Filters: Plan on taking pictures or using an optical device? Be sure to equip your equipment with a special solar filter, as well as use proper technique to prevent potential damage to your equipment.
- Viewing During Totality: If you are inside the path of totality on April 8, 2024, remove your solar filter only when the Moon completely covers the Sun’s bright face and it suddenly gets quite dark. Experience totality, then, as soon as the bright Sun begins to reappear, replace your solar viewer to look at the remaining partial phases. Note that this applies only to viewing without optical aid (other than ordinary eyeglasses).
- Viewing Outside Totality: Outside the path of totality, and throughout a partial or annular solar eclipse, you must always use a safe solar filter to view the Sun directly.
- Plan Your Best Viewing Experience: Travel to a location that offers an unobstructed view of the sun during its total coverage or totality – this will give you the best opportunity to take in the full experience. Check out our list of the best spots to catch this historical event!