Quote:
Originally Posted by Radio
We will have about 2:15 of totality. I been told that the corona (and all that other stuff) is about as bright as a full moon and of course is safe to look at with unprotected eyes. And cameras.
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Yes, that's correct. What people do sometimes, though, is get so involved with the corona, and their telescopes, and their binoculars, and their cameras, that they lose track of the time -- 2:15 can fly by -- and they're looking at the lovely corona through, say, a 50mm-diameter objective when the sun starts to come back out. That 50mm objective is rather larger than their eye's pupil is (perhaps 4mm max) and gathers about 300 times as much light. Bingo, no retina any more, and no more looking at pretty faces. Ever.
It happens to someone, somewhere, every eclipse, and it ain't worth risking.
Ten million people, and NASA too, will be taking pix, and surely some of them can take better pix than you or I can.
But I have a pair of filters for my binoculars (Fujinon 7x50), and I'm not gonna take them off during the eclipse.