Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Once in a blue moon

The sun turns dark on April 8th, don’t miss it!

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Be sure to have a bottle or two handy during the eclipse

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haha…

OK I’ll probably substitute it with sparkling grape/cider! :wink:
sparkling1

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I’m pretty much underneath dead center of the umbra. Totality at my house will last 3 minutes 38 seconds. There’s a good chance we could spot “the devil comet” during totality.
While there is a 68% chance of cloudy skies, based on records from 2000, the latest forecast for Monday April 8 is “Sunny. High 56.”
I have my eclipse glasses, I know the time, azimuth & altitude and I have a lawn chair.:banjo::grin:

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OK I ordered a sunglass with UV protection. With 20 min drive to a nearby recreation center, I should be within the full eclipse zone. :slight_smile:

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Good luck with the glasses. UV protection alone is not enough.
https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/where-to-get-solar-eclipse-glasses-updated-advice

I hope our short drive is just that. The early indications are for lovely traffic jams!

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I concur!

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Guys, oh really?? The glasses arrived today. OK I’ll see if I can pick up a cheap one at a nearby store for Eclipse protection. I remember seeing a solar eclipse when I was a kid, we used smoked glasses, so that is a back up plan.
UVGlasses

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I’m not discounting the dangers, but every time there is an eclipse we get the warnings about how we are at risk of damaging our eyes with the glasses. I’ve never heard a single story about how after an eclipse there are suddenly a buch of people going blind because they looked at the sun. It seems like there would be more than a few stories like that if 100s of millions of people were seeing an eclipse. Do you go blind? Do you loose your mind? Do you get a headache? Do you loose your ability to play a G run?

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Hi @JohnM I wouldn’t risk my eyesight with those glasses no matter what the manufacturers claim.

Check out the advice from NASA

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Alrighty, I’ll get one! :slight_smile:

I know it is a marketing thing, I’m a living witness and I have seen and not gone blind. The climate from where I’m originally is vastly different, so we can’t compare ourselves in terms of resistance to sun rays. But I’ll buy one for fun. There were some very cheap ones online but I didn’t find very many options at store at those cheap prices.

I bought a pack of 20 for Christmas and gave them to all my family members. Then here comes the guilt… don’t buy your eclipse glasses off of Amazon. :-). What for us on the news next week.

… and in other news, a whole Texas family has gone blind after viewing the eclipse using eclipse glasses made in China. Reports are the father is very cheap.

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No one would admit to damaging their eyes looking at an eclipse because for the rest of their life they would hear “Didn’t you know you aren’t supposed to look directly at the eclipse? I mean seriously, it was on the news every hour for 3 months!”
:stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I couldn’t agree with you more. There are other reasons why NASA doesn’t want us to really look at eclipses.

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Yes…

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Apparently your eye can become adjusted to the low light from the eclipse, but the sun is still emitting radation, light etc– this can cause permanent damage to your retina. The only time you should ever look at an eclipse without glasses is during full totality. Seriously, please don’t look at the eclipse without the right eye protection!

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Not saying you should stare at the sun. That’s never smart. But the scare tactics are the surface of something bigger.

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Really?? I can’t be believe a whole family to go blind, that’s too bad! I’m assuming that’s a credible news. Thanks for the heads up, I’ll go for proper one in a store! :slight_smile:

Seeing my eyesight is good, BMV asked yesterday if I wore contact lens for the vision test! So far, my eyes have been good.

Extended period, I understand. But can there be any benefit from directly looking at the sun for a very brief time? I wish it does some natural cataract operation! The brightness is not so much as directly looking at say, a welding light, which you simply cannot and you have to wear goggles.

@Archie, haha… If you don’t see/find him, he must have ended up in the south pole of the sun!