Will be doing brief solar observing at about 5:30pm and then drive to Allen Park for eclipse

We will be doing a little solar observing tonight at about 5:30pm and then drive to Allen Park near the Meijers and Taco Bell on the hill to observe the first part of the solar eclipse.

You can only see the first half hour of the eclipse before the sun sets. Only part of the sun will be covered.

You need to use safe solar viewing methods to observe the sun today. Don't observe it unless you have a safe method that has been checked out by an astronomer.

There are safe viewing filters to view the sun which are built for telescopes. There are solar viewing glasses as well. And only one kind of welding glass, number 14 which is safe to use to view the sun. Don't view the sun with other strange home made methods. Unless it's a pinhole projection system which is a pin hole in a piece of paper and you look at the shadow of the sun on another object or piece of paper, You would project the sun using the pin hole, not look at the sun directly through the pin hole.

Other methods, using foil from wrappers, Mylar balloons and exposed film ARE NOT safe. Do not use these other methods, because UV radiation will not be filtered out and it can damage your eyesight. When in doubt ask an amateur astronomer or look at excellent observing website, like the one for Perkins observatory.

Here is a photo of the sun I took through a safe solar telescope last Friday. The photo shows only a part of the sun, with a large prominence blasting off the sun.

I took this through our Lunt Solar telescope with an 8mm eyepiece and a handheld Canon Eos camera pressed up against the eyepiece. The high power and short light throw distance of the eyepiece prevented me from getting the entire solar disk in this photo, but you can see the large flare.



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