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I was driving back from work lunch about 10 minutes before totality and passed literally dozens of people standing on sidewalks and in roadways just staring directly at the sun… gonna be a lot of blindness after this
Not trying to down play the health risk for staring at an eclipse, but dipshit in chief stared at the last one and didn’t go blind. What kind of harm to his vision do you think he experienced?
Does it depend on close you are to the totality? Are a bunch of people going to need glasses after this latest one?
It’s exactly the same as staring at the regular sun except the pain reflex doesn’t happen, so you aren’t incentivized to stop. Technically, yes, you can look at the sun for a brief moment, but the problem is that your eyes don’t scream at you to stop when it’s an eclipse.
If you can see any part of the sun, it can damage your eyes. The problem isn’t the total amount of light, but the energy density. The energy density of the light from the sun doesn’t change no matter how much is covered, until you get to 100%. When you stare at the sun, you’re kinda sorta cooking that spot on your retina, and it’s only dependent on the energy density of the light, not the size of the spot.
Think of it like cooking a spot on a steak with a lighter. Sure, you’d normally use a whole campfire, but fire is fire. You’ll cook the spot under the lighter if you leave it there too long.
Ty for the info! I wonder why the pain reflex doesn’t trigger?
This is absolute total speculation but my guess is that the pain sensation is more of an interpretation created by your brain than any direct sensing of damage to your retina. Whatever it is that creates that sensation must require a certain number of nerves to be over simulated.
If you get shot in the eye with a sufficiently powerful laser (not a little laser pen) you’ll actually hear a pop from your retina exploding, but you won’t feel any pain.
Thanks for the imagery…
iirc, the only safe time to look directly at the eclipse is during totality, where the moon has completely blocked the sun. But that’s a pretty small window, Dustin from SmarterEveryDay put out a really informative video last month if anyone’s interested. He interviews Dr. Telepun who wrote a book on it and made an app that audibly walks you through what’s happening during the eclipse in real time, really neat stuff.
He’s so happy he found it
The point
Found it! It’s right there
Often missed on lists of his greatest acts as presidente
That’s an mp4.
Here’s the 90 day graph
Lol you can see the stupidity in real time.
Some of it is that people didn’t get the memo, some of it is that people got told incorrect information, some of it is that people got sold bad glasses, and some of it really is that people didn’t listen to the warnings.
It seems to also be a failure of the American education system. I’ve been told to not look directly at the sun since I can remember. Kids have very sensitive eyes so it’s surprising to me that not everybody heard that rule.
The funny thing is I once got my eyes burnt even without looking at the sun directly - I sailed a lot without sunglasses and thus learned that reflected light can be harmful as well.
Wear eye protection as often as you can kids
To be fair, many people were sold fake eclipse glasses that claimed to be safe.
I feel awful for folks who were duped.
Mostly in Illinois, and on Amazon, some people who literally bought ISO 12312-2020 instead of ISO12312-2 glasses. There is a story on it.
I knew nothing about the proper ISO for eclipse glasses beforehand but if I was going to risk my eyesight and the eyesight of those who I love like that, you bet I was going to learn about it via due diligence.
Solar eclipse glasses sold on Amazon, in stores recalled: Illinois health officials say
Most people however seemed to have screwed with their eyesight by just looking at the sun. Seems political inclination was really not a factor. Stupidity or lack of education were.
Yeah, I wouldn’t trust any glasses that I could buy
If I was going to view it then I would have built a pinhole projector
You can buy glasses approved by the American Astrological Society, which independently checked that the glasses were safe. (They’re supposed to meet an ISO standard, but this is a double check.) Also, you can test them at home, by looking at lightbulbs and around your house. If you can see anything that isn’t the emitting source of a bright light (like the actual diode of an LED) then they’re not dark enough.
Astrological?
The moon is in Scorpio so these are safe bro. Don’t be such a Taurus
Yeah I checked the ones a coworker gave me by looking at an LED too bright to not hurt my eyes. Since I couldn’t see it at all I felt safe
Yep!
I got a handful of pairs from ICStars (found on the Astronomical Society website) and checked them with the method you described. Neither myself nor anyone I gave them to experienced any discomfort or eye strain. I was really relieved and super happy!
Not a shill. Just excited I got to see the eclipse in time because of them. (:
I just poked a hole through a dozen or so sheets and held it over another pile of sheets. Trivial and worked well enough for seeing the partial eclipse.
I don’t know how I feel about this…
Silly me googled it to see why I’m seeing posts about it and why people would be googling it. Then I remembered it was eclipse day.
(Pic not related)
My eyes hurt, and I had eclipse glasses, and a solar filter on my telescope. Lots of these are probably just eyestrain.
Same here, followed proper procedure and was extra careful to have them on as soon as totality came to an end. My eyes felt strained after I googled to see if I needed to be concerned.
Most of the glasses say not to use them for longer than 3-5 minutes total over the course of the eclipse. So if people were sitting there staring at it for the entire event with the glasses on, their eyes going to hurt.
Just a thing to note, some glasses ship with warnings to only look at the sun with the glasses on for a few minutes or less. The sun is very bright.
What the hell Michigan? I expected this from Indiana, but I thought you were better than this.
Michiganders might have been better that that, but consider all the tourists who decided to travel up there and skewed the data.
As a Michigander, I choose this one because I don’t like the other option 😅
Haha my eyes hurt before the eclipse! Allergies are a bitch
The only reason it’s so light in MN is because it was too cloudy to stare at the sun
It also didn’t get that dark here I went out around 2 and it was dim at best.
Never forget the only reason Trump lost to Biden is because he literally killed his base with COVID denialism.
I wonder how much of this is just people looking for other people to make fun of.
It did seem really bright this morning. (Hours before the eclipse.)
Well good thing I slept through it.
What a trend
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