A Saturday Solar Eclipse
It’s solar eclipse time around here, and the best one since Aug. 21, 2017, will be Oct. 14. Unfortunately it won’t be a total eclipse this coming but a halfway decent partial eclipse.
Next Saturday’s eclipse will be a midday affair over Butler that begins at 11:53 p.m. as the silhouetted moon contacts the upper right side of the sun’s disk. It peaks at 1:11 p.m. when the moon will cover 44% of the sun. The show’s over at 2:31 p.m. as the moon moves beyond the lower left side of the solar disk.
As with any eclipse, you never want to stare at the sun. It’s not good for your eyes, and you could easily do permanent damage in a very short time. Viewing the sun with binoculars or a telescope for less than a second can cause permanent eye damage or blindness!
You can purchase special safe eclipse glasses that let you safely take in the show, but never wear them and look through binoculars or a telescope!
There are several places you can buy eclipse glasses online, but be careful. Make sure they’re safe. Check to see if your glasses are labeled with the ISO 12312-2 or ISO 12312-2:2015 international safety standard.
However, some bad actors simply copy the ISO logo and print it on eclipse glasses that don't meet the standard, and you can't test the glasses yourself because it has to be done with an expensive piece of lab equipment.
For a list of safe solar eclipse glasses put out by the American Astronomical Association, NASA and others, check out eclipse.aas.org/resources/solar-filters.
Another safe way to view a solar eclipse is the projection method. Hold a piece of stiff white cardboard with a pencil-diameter hole in the center over another rigid piece of black cardboard. Hold the white cardboard with the hole in it over your shoulder with your back to the sun. Use the shadow of the cardboard to aim it over the black, blank cardboard, and you should be able to see the eclipse with absolutely no danger. It really works!
While we’ll have a partial solar eclipse around here next Saturday, in a narrow band from the Western United States to Brazil, there’ll be a total eclipse on that Saturday, but not completely.
Since the moon during the time of this eclipse is just about at its farthest distance from us in its orbit around the Earth, the moon’s disk won’t be large enough to block the sun completely. Instead of the classic darkened solar disk usually seen during a total eclipse, the sun will appear as a ring of fire with the moon blocking all but the outer edges of the sun. This is called an annular eclipse.
Mark your calendar for April 8, 2024, because there’ll be another partial solar eclipse around here that’ll be much deeper and darker. The moon will cover over 98% of the sun at mid-eclipse here in Butler!
If you want an even bigger show, head up to extreme northwestern Pennsylvania because in and around Erie, Meadville and Edinboro you can see a 100% total eclipse! That area will be in the total eclipse band that stretches from Western Mexico to northeast Canada, including the U.S. from Texas to portions of New England.
Believe me, it’s worth traveling to see and then some! As good as even the 98% near-total eclipse here in Butler, a total eclipse is beyond breathtaking. If I were you and you can swing it, go for it because there won’t be another total eclipse this close again for years and years and years! Have I sold you?!
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and retired broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis/St. Paul. He is the author of "Stars: a Month by Month Tour of the Constellations," published by Adventure Publications and available at bookstores and adventurepublications.net. Can contact him at mikewlynch@comcast.net.
