Viewing the Sun Safely

Warning!  Do not look directly at the Sun with your remaining eye!  Seriously, you can lose your eyesight by looking at the sun, especially if you do it through binoculars. 

There are several techniques for viewing the sun safely.  One of the best is eyepiece projection, which we used to view the partial solar eclipse at the 2012 Overland Expo near Flagstaff, Arizona. 

A pair of binoculars were placed on a tripod.  A screen was made by taping a white sheet of paper to a box lid, and placed in the shadow of the binoculars about 3 meters back.  The binoculars were pointed at the sun (NEVER look through them when you do this!) - this takes some fussing but you can tell where they are pointing by the way the shadow of the binoculars looks on the screen.  Once the sun is found, you will have two images.  Cover one of the lenses with a cap if you find this annoying.  To improve contrast, a cardboard shield with two holes in it can be added around which casts a shadow on the screen.  Finally, adjust the focus.  You may see some black spots on the image.  These are sunspots, and each one you see is much larger than the size of the Earth. 



Grace demonstrating eyepiece projection.  Note the image of the partial eclipse on the screen.