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title: How to Safely Watch the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse | TIME
description: Unsafe eclipse glasses were a significant problem in 2017, causing online retailers like Amazon to issue refunds and face a lawsuit by customers who purchased unsafe glasses. (The case was later dismissed in court.)  

Here’s everything you need to know about how to purchase solar eclipse glasses, get them for free—and avoid fakes.


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og:title: How to Safely Watch the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse
og:description: Unsafe eclipse glasses were a significant problem in 2017, causing online retailers like Amazon to issue refunds and face a lawsuit by customers who purchased unsafe glasses. (The case was later dismissed in court.)  

Here’s everything you need to know about how to purchase solar eclipse glasses, get them for free—and avoid fakes.


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twitter:title: How to Safely Watch the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse
twitter:description: Unsafe eclipse glasses were a significant problem in 2017, causing online retailers like Amazon to issue refunds and face a lawsuit by customers who purchased unsafe glasses. (The case was later dismissed in court.)  

Here’s everything you need to know about how to purchase solar eclipse glasses, get them for free—and avoid fakes.


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---

* Science

# How to Safely Watch the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

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<!-- video src="https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Cm5dlQRH.m3u8" -->
## Video: How to Safely Watch the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

[Watch (HLS stream): How to Safely Watch the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Cm5dlQRH.m3u8) (6:15)

![How to Safely Watch the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/Cm5dlQRH/poster.jpg?width=720)

_Published 2024-04-02. Unsafe eclipse glasses were a significant problem in 2017, causing online retailers like Amazon to issue refunds and face a lawsuit by customers who purchased unsafe glasses. (The case was later dismissed in court.)   Here’s everything you need to know about how to purchase solar eclipse glasses, get them for free—and avoid fakes._


---

Apr 5, 2024 9:38 PM UTC

---

## More From This Series

[All Videos](https://time.com/video/)

[See the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Along the Path of Totality](/video/h9bPQGNP/)

### See the 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Along the Path of Totality

[Watch: 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Totality in Arkansas](/video/qwbRfU2l/)

### Watch: 2024 Total Solar Eclipse Totality in Arkansas

[Watch: The 2024 Total Solar Eclipse](/video/tqjUO7Kp/):37

### Watch: The 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

---


## Transcript

A total solar eclipse is in most astronomers opinions the most spectacular thing you can ever see. It is a parade of color and changes and of feelings and experiences that unfold very quickly and very spectacularly. My name is Rick finder. I'm an astronomer and I am the project manager of the American Astronomical Society solar eclipse task force. So it's important to know that during the total phase of a total solar eclipse when the moon is completely blocking the sun's bright face and this only happens if you're in the path of totality it is perfectly safe to look at the sun without any eye protection because the totally Eclipse sun when the sun's outer atmosphere the corona shines forth is only about as bright as a full moon.

So it's just too safe to look at but it any other time during the partial phases that precede and follow totality and the entirety of a partial solar eclipse, which is all you'll get if you're outside the path, you must use some kind of safe I protection because the sun even if it's only a thin sliver is so very bright that looking at it for more than a second or so is going to cause damage to your retina. So we recommend that people equip themselves with Eclipse viewers. They come as in the form of cardboard. Framed eyeglasses or plastic frame eyeglasses also cardboard handheld viewers sometimes thick cardboard and they have special filters in that are supposed to meet a certain International standard called ISO.

12312 Dash to You'll often see that number printed on these products that if if a product meets that standard them it is perfectly safe to use to look directly at the Sun the iso 12312 - 2 standard is both a standard of what makes all of you are safe. But also what makes us older viewer usable it specifies the maximum amount of light that can get through not just in visible light also in ultraviolet and also Indian free solar eclipse glasses. Viewer is at least a thousand times darker than the even the dark Brittany sunglasses. So if you can see anything through it other than the sun you should be concerned what I tell people is look around in the house.

If you can see things you see detail in the house your glasses aren't dark enough if they pass the indoor test take them outside. Don't look at the sun. Just look at the landscape again, if you can see the landscape through the glasses. They're not dark enough. Now if you passed that test you looked inside the house, you looked outside the house and you don't basically anyting take a brief glance at the sun on a sunny day. Don't wait for April 8th, if the sun looks round and sharp-edged and comfortably bright your glasses are almost certainly safe. The reason I say almost certainly is because genuinely safe eclipse glasses will also block most of the sun's ultraviolet and infrared radiation.

We only see the visible light but there is ultraviolet light Moschino can damage your corny is one of the reasons we end up with cataracts Too much exposure to solar ultraviolet and infrared radiation is heat radiation. So the last thing you want to do is cook your rent the last thing I want anybody to do if they haven't been able to get their hands on eclipse glasses. There other solar viewers is to decide if there's no safe way to view the eclipse so they have to skip it. There are other safe ways to view a solar eclipse the most common one is what we call pinhole projection a bit of a misnomer because you can use holes that are bigger than the made by a p in a very simple pinhole projector is just to take your hands and create a little Waffle pattern and then Projection is done with the Sun at your back.

So you put the Sun at your back and you look at the shadow of your hands with the CrossFit on the ground and you'll see little crescents sons in between the shadows of your fingers. Are you created pin holes with your fingers another great pinhole projector is a colander from your kitchen or a perforated spoon that you would use to strain soup anything with a bunch of small holes in it makes a great pinhole projector at the only time can heal projection doesn't work is if you happen to be in the path of totality during the few minutes when the sun is completely blocked by the moon the sun in total eclipse is faint enough that it's not going to create a pinhole images through any of these projectors that I was describing but during a partial face are you can use pinhole projection to see an image of the sun.

There's no denying that seeing a total solar eclipse is a very emotional experience and it's partly because it's so beautiful. Partly because things happened so fast that the pace is breathtaking and it's hard to keep up how fast things are changing as the moon finally covers the Sun and then again a few minutes later as the moon begins to uncover it and what you see in between those two morons is just you know, unbelievably spectacular as soon as the eclipse is over you want to see another one.

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