by neufer » Mon Jun 04, 2012 8:58 am
Chris Peterson wrote:neufer wrote:owlice wrote:
Eclipse glasses with binoculars are a no-no, from what I've read.
I don't know why.
The sun should be low and the glass lens themselves will protect from UV if the eclipse glasses should slip
Viewing the Sun through binoculars, even when low, can cause permanent blindness faster than your blink reflex can occur. Just holding binoculars on the Sun can melt or burn internal elements of the binoculars, and can melt the eclipse glasses. You
never want to use any solar viewing scheme where the filter or attenuator is at the eyepiece. The correct way to view the Sun with binoculars (or any telescope) is with a full aperture filter. The same material that the eclipse glasses are made of (metalized plastic) is placed over the objective(s). This can be used safely.
I strongly recommend the projection method myself for all sorts of reasons
(few of us own full aperture filters or eclipse glasses... besides
... would "astrobob" King put our binoculars in jeopardy
):
http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/34/3/FeynmanLosAlamos.htm wrote:
Los Alamos From Below: Reminiscences 1943-1945, by Richard Feynman
<<
I flew back, and I just arrived when the buses were leaving, so I went straight out to the site and we waited out there, 20 miles away. We had a radio, and they were supposed to tell us when the thing was going to go off and so forth, but the radio wouldn't work, so we never knew what was happening. But just a few minutes before it was supposed to go off the radio started to work, and they told us there was 20 seconds or something to go, for people who were far away like we were. Others were closer, 6 miles away.
They gave out dark glasses that you could watch it with. Dark glasses! Twenty miles away, you couldn't see a damn thing through dark glasses. So I figured the only thing that could really hurt your eyes - bright light can never hurt your eyes - is ultraviolet light. I got behind a truck windshield, because the ultraviolet can't go through glass, so that would be safe, and so I could see the damn thing. OK.
Time comes, and this tremendous flash out there is so bright that I duck, and I see this purple splotch on the floor of the truck. I said, “That ain't it. That's an after-image.” So I look back up, and I see this white light changing into yellow and then into orange. The clouds form and then they disappear again; the compression and the expansion forms and makes clouds disappear. Then finally a big ball of orange, the center that was so bright, becomes a ball of orange that starts to rise and billow a little bit and get a little black around the edges, and then you see it's a big ball of smoke with flashes on the inside of the fire going out, the heat.
All this took about one minute. It was a series from bright to dark, and I had seen it. I am about the only guy who actually looked at the damn thing the first Trinity test. Everybody else had dark glasses, and the people at six miles couldn't see it because they were all told to lie on the floor. I'm probably the only guy who saw it with the human eye.
Finally, after about a minute and a half, there's suddenly a tremendous noise - BANG, and then a rumble, like thunder -- and that's what convinced me. Nobody had said a word during this whole thing. We were all just watching quietly. But this sound released everybody- - released me particularly because the solidity of the sound at that distance meant that it had really worked.
The man standing next to me said, “What's that?"
I said, “That was the bomb.">>
[quote="Chris Peterson"][quote="neufer"][quote="owlice"]
Eclipse glasses with binoculars are a no-no, from what I've read.[/quote]
I don't know why.
The sun should be low and the glass lens themselves will protect from UV if the eclipse glasses should slip[/quote]
Viewing the Sun through binoculars, even when low, can cause permanent blindness faster than your blink reflex can occur. Just holding binoculars on the Sun can melt or burn internal elements of the binoculars, and can melt the eclipse glasses. You [b]never[/b] want to use any solar viewing scheme where the filter or attenuator is at the eyepiece. The correct way to view the Sun with binoculars (or any telescope) is with a full aperture filter. The same material that the eclipse glasses are made of (metalized plastic) is placed over the objective(s). This can be used safely.[/quote]
[b][u]I strongly recommend the projection method[/u][/b] myself for all sorts of reasons
(few of us own full aperture filters or eclipse glasses... besides
... would "astrobob" King put our binoculars in jeopardy :?: ):
[img3="[b][color=#0000FF]If you're able to put your binoculars on a steady mount, the
projection method is a good one for viewing the transit. Photo: [url=http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2012/05/31/dont-miss-next-weeks-rare-and-wonderful-transit-of-venus/]Bob King[/url][/color][/b]"]http://astrobob.areavoices.com/files/2012/05/Solar-eclipse-Baja-projection-methodS1-400x282.jpg[/img3]
[quote=" http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/34/3/FeynmanLosAlamos.htm"]
Los Alamos From Below: Reminiscences 1943-1945, by Richard Feynman
<<[i]I flew back, and I just arrived when the buses were leaving, so I went straight out to the site and we waited out there, 20 miles away. We had a radio, and they were supposed to tell us when the thing was going to go off and so forth, but the radio wouldn't work, so we never knew what was happening. But just a few minutes before it was supposed to go off the radio started to work, and they told us there was 20 seconds or something to go, for people who were far away like we were. Others were closer, 6 miles away.
They gave out dark glasses that you could watch it with. Dark glasses! Twenty miles away, you couldn't see a damn thing through dark glasses.[b][color=#0000FF] So I figured the only thing that could really hurt your eyes - [u]bright light can never hurt your eyes[/u] - is ultraviolet light. I got behind a truck windshield, because the ultraviolet can't go through glass, so that would be safe, and so I could see the damn thing. OK.[/color][/b]
Time comes, and this tremendous flash out there is so bright that I duck, and I see this purple splotch on the floor of the truck. I said, “That ain't it. That's an after-image.” So I look back up, and I see this white light changing into yellow and then into orange. The clouds form and then they disappear again; the compression and the expansion forms and makes clouds disappear. Then finally a big ball of orange, the center that was so bright, becomes a ball of orange that starts to rise and billow a little bit and get a little black around the edges, and then you see it's a big ball of smoke with flashes on the inside of the fire going out, the heat.
All this took about one minute. It was a series from bright to dark, and I had seen it. I am about the only guy who actually looked at the damn thing the first Trinity test. Everybody else had dark glasses, and the people at six miles couldn't see it because they were all told to lie on the floor. I'm probably the only guy who saw it with the human eye.
Finally, after about a minute and a half, there's suddenly a tremendous noise - BANG, and then a rumble, like thunder -- and that's what convinced me. Nobody had said a word during this whole thing. We were all just watching quietly. But this sound released everybody- - released me particularly because the solidity of the sound at that distance meant that it had really worked.
The man standing next to me said, “What's that?"
I said, “That was the bomb."[/i]>>[/quote]