Home > Ephemeris Program > Ephemeris: 04/02/2024 – Availability of and checking out eclipse glasses

Ephemeris: 04/02/2024 – Availability of and checking out eclipse glasses

April 2, 2024

This is Ephemeris for Tuesday, April 2nd. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 51 minutes, setting at 8:12, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:18. The Moon, 1 day past last quarter, will rise at 4:59 tomorrow morning.

In six days there will be a total solar eclipse, if you’re right place. Northern Michigan is not the right place. We get a pretty good chunk of the Sun being covered by the Moon, about nearly 90% around here. This means that you will still need protection if you want to view the eclipse. My daughter reports that there are places around Traverse City that you can get solar eclipse glasses. However, to make sure that they are the proper eclipse glasses they will have a globe symbol with ISO in it for the International Organization for Standardization. Also, they must state that they conform to and meet the transmission requirements of ISO 12312-2, filters for direct observation of the sun. That doesn’t keep someone from making counterfeit ones. A way to check is with laying one lens onto a smartphone flashlight, which should be barely visible through it.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EDT, UT–4 hours). They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Testing eclipse glasses
This is an image of solar eclipse glasses placed on a smartphone to test their effectiveness with its light, which is used as a flashlight and as a flash, turned on and note that it just barely shows up in the lens or the filter. Also note the ISO 12312-2 requirement of the ISO filters for direct observation of the sun. These glasses pass the test. Now these solar eclipse glasses are for just viewing the sun without optical aid. Do not use them with binoculars or a telescope. They’re just for viewing the sun having ambient sunlight fall on them. Anything more than that will burn through the filter and cause eye damage.
Categories: Ephemeris Program