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Mylar lenses offered by some other companies give the sun a white tint.Įither way, the glasses are inexpensive. That gives an orange tint to the sun’s image and reflects more heat from your face, he says. Glasses from his company have black polymer lenses with a silver coating outside. “They are both safe if they have been ISO-certified and are used properly,” Aur says. Or, they can have a metal coating on the plastic that provides the protection. Otherwise, you’d notice “a wash-out of the image,” he says.Ĭertified eclipse glasses have plastic filters with light-absorbing material inside the plastic. So the filter must allow very little scattering of whatever light comes through. The filter must be dense enough to provide protection, explains Chou. That company and several others make glasses and viewers that have been tested by independent labs to meet the international standard. Aur heads up operations at American Paper Optics in Bartlett, Tenn. “The lens material is specially made to filter out 100 percent of harmful ultraviolet rays, 100 percent of harmful infrared rays and 99.999 percent of intense visible light,” explains Paulo Aur.
#How to see the eclipse with paper plate iso#
The key is to get glasses or shields that are certified to meet an international standard known as ISO 12312-2. Fortunately, there are ways to see a solar eclipse and keep eyes safe. Homemade filters can’t guarantee safety either. Regular sunglasses can’t protect eclipse viewers, even if their lenses are very dark. Indeed, as the visible light gets less bright, the eye’s muscles respond to let more light in. “Whatever is not covered up by the moon is every bit as intense as it is outside of an eclipse,” says Chou. The danger is no less when the moon starts to block out the sun. The resulting harm could occur almost instantly. Their lenses focus the sun’s energy on the eye. And looking at the sun through binoculars or a telescope could worsen the risk. That could lead to a permanent blind spot. “The intense light and heat can actually cook the retina,” Feinberg notes. To view an eclipse safely, you will need eye protection. Depending on the harm, damage to them can be either temporary or permanent. And resulting cell-killing free-radical reactions can “very rapidly chew up the internal organelles of the cell.” Organelles are parts of a cell that do specific jobs. Those chemicals can easily swipe electrons from nearby atoms or molecules.
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These reactions produce molecules such as peroxide (Puhr-OX-ide) and hydroxyl (Hy-DROX-uhl) radicals. He’s a vision scientist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. “The light interacts with materials within the cell,” explains Ralph Chou. “Intense sunlight can cause chemical reactions to occur in the retina that damage or destroy the rods and cones.” That harm could lead to partial or total blindness. He’s an astronomer in Boston, Mass., with the American Astronomical Society.
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“The primary danger is photochemical,” says Rick Fienberg. Harm to those cells can happen without warning. They’re found on the retina at the back of the eye. If someone looks directly at the sun, its energy can harm light-sensitive cells called rods and cones. It has longer wavelengths than red light and transfers heat. You can’t see this radiation, but it can cause sunburn, DNA damage and eye injury. It has wavelengths shorter than those of visible light, close to violet on the spectrum. The sun’s electromagnetic energy includes several types of radiation. And people watching a partial eclipse must keep their glasses on throughout the entire event. Once totality happens, you must put the glasses back on just before the moon moves to let light through again. She’s an astronomer at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “You have to wear your protective glasses before totality - before the moon totally blocks the sun,” warns Shadia Habbal. Its intense light can easily damage eyes. But just gazing up at the sun is a bad idea.