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NASASunEarth4495 karma

During totality, you don't need eclipse glasses and shouldn't wear them. It's actually easy to know when to take off the eclipse glasses, because you won't be able to see anything. When totality is over, as soon as any bright Sun peeks around the Moon, you need to put your glasses back on. - Eric Christian, NASA/GSFC

NASASunEarth4351 karma

It depends upon how long you stare at the Sun. A split second won't do permanent damage (the first thing every kid does when you tell them not to stare at the Sun is to look at the Sun). But the longer you look, the more damage you'll do. Part of the problem is that there are no pain sensors in the retina, so you won't know how bad it is. And an eclipse is no worse than the Sun on any day, there is just more probability that someone will stare at the interesting phenomenon - Eric Christian, NASA/GSFC

NASASunEarth2388 karma

A coronagraph* is an instrument that observes the Sun's outer atmosphere, the corona. The instrument blocks out the direct light of the Sun, using a disk that is more than the diameter of the Sun. Using this instrument, scientists miss the lower part of the corona. But this region is visible during a solar eclipse, and so scientists take advantage of this opportunity to make measurements in this critical region. Mona Kessel (NASA)

  • Edited by moderator at 12:55, due to autocorrect changing 'coronagraph' to 'chronograph'

NASASunEarth2328 karma

Wow! You won the geographical lottery! Animals can behave strangely when it goes dark. Birds get confused, you might hear an owl hoot during totality or a rooster grow when the sun reappears. If you look at the horizon, you may see a 360 degree sunset since you are sitting in the center of a shadow. The temperature may drop 10 degrees. Good luck! Amy Winebarger

NASASunEarth1826 karma

What you can do is to show evidence to the contrary. Pictures from the space station or the shuttle, high enough up to see the curve of the Earth. You can't see the curve from the ground, it does appear flat. if someone chooses not to believe the evidence, I don't know how else to get the message through. Mona Kessel (NASA)