Eclipse Solar Glasses

With the upcoming eclipse, I want to make sure we have everything we need to safely view the eclipse especially if Lukey and Kenzie are going to observe it with us.  If the weather doesn't cooperate (which is likely) then at least I'll have these items for other days of solar astronomy.  If the weather does cooperate, I definitely want to be able to view this eclipse as many ways as possible and these solar glasses will come in handy.

Obviously, since I have a few telescopes, I'll have telescopes set up in the yard too.  Each telescope will have an appropriate solar filter and will be ready for viewing at any time.  However, when you are sitting back in a chair, it would be nice to have solar glasses available to watch the eclipse as well.  

I just purchased these solar glasses, below, about a week ago.  They came in a box of three.  The great thing about these solar glasses is that they have sturdy frames and they fit over regular eyeglasses quite well.  These are definitely my favorite solar glasses...

These two types of solar glasses, in the next photo below, have cardboard frames and are a bit smaller than the above solar glasses.  These also can be used over regular eyeglasses but they are not as secure as the above solar glasses nor do they fit all that well.  

The gold pair of solar glasses are good and safe with the appropriate solar rating.  I got these glasses with a Hydrogen Alpha solar filter a couple of years ago.  I definitely trust these solar glasses.  

The red and blue solar glasses, however, I do not trust after trying them.  We got these glasses from Will before we drove him to the airport a few weeks ago.  He had purchased these on Amazon before he had planned to leave for Florida.  Purchasing on Amazon isn't necessarily a problem but I suspect these particular solar glasses are not accurately rated.

Unfortunately, when Sheila and I tried these red and blue solar glasses, we both were left seeing a big, bright spot after just a few seconds of use.  That is definitely not a good sign so we won't be using these solar glasses.  I later tried these solar glasses again but this time over my sunglasses and that was a bit better but, still, I don't trust them so we won't be using them.

We'll use the gold cardboard solar glasses and the three pairs of the plastic frame glasses at the top of this blog entry...

I also made a pinhole eclipse projection box.  Actually, I'm not sure what this is really called but that is the name that came to mind.  I have the "pinhole" taped on temporarily with blue painter's tape in the photo.  The painter's tape easily peels off so I can change the sizes of the pinhole.  I start by first using an actual pinhole in foil...  that was far too small.  Then I tried a 1/8" hole but that appeared to be too small too so I changed it to a 1/4" hole.  The 1/4" hole seems to be about right.

With the sun at your back, you hold this box in front of you with the pinhole above your head while you peer through the large rectangular opening.  The sunlight shines through the pinhole and is projected onto a white screen on the opposite end of the box.  The white screen is just a piece of heavy mixed-media art paper glued in place.

This photo, below, is an animated GIF showing the full disk of the sun inside this pinhole eclipse projection box as well as what it will look like during the eclipse.  This was a pretty simple project but should be pretty cool if we get to view the eclipse (weather permitting)...  hmmm...  maybe I should try to mount a small lens in front of this pinhole to focus the whole sky better...

Also, since it was clear and sunny today, I had a chance to quickly test the new SolarQuest mount since I did some work on it a few days ago.  I had soldered a new power jack into the mount but didn't have a chance to test my soldering until today.  The mount worked just fine by powering up and quickly finding the sun and the jack now holds the power cable very snugly which was the purpose of installing a new power jack.  

The original jack was actually the wrong size for standard power cables.  Anyway, the newly installed power jack seems to work just fine so that is good.  I don't do soldering all that often so I wasn't sure of my work so it was nice to see that my soldering skills were just fine.  Today's test was good!

I'm still hoping we'll get lucky with the weather but I'm not holding my breath...