The Moon takes a bite out of the Sun ! Today !!! Viewable in the UK and Europe from about 10am to 12.30 – the best bit (if you have a clear enough sky) being around 11am.
Please, dear folks, do NOT be tempted to look directly at the Sun at any time. It only takes one careless moment to damage your eyes for life. Even more important – don’t even think of looking through any kind of binocular or telescope (and that includes small finder scopes) at the Sun. it’s incredibly dangerous.
Best way in my opinion to ‘see’ the eclipse is to project it. And you can do that with a telescope – but you can do a pretty fair job with just a small hole in a sheet of card. The hole can be just a few millimetres across. Stand with your back to the Sun. Hold the card with the hole a metre or so above another piece of preferably white card – and you’ll see a fairly decent little picture of the Sun. Move the cards further apart and the image will get bigger. Watch as the bite out of the Sun – produced by the Moon blocking our view – gets bigger – which is pretty exciting – and then gets smaller – by which time you and your kids will be losing concentration !!!
Enjoy ! But remember —- Unless you have a special solar eclipse filter, that you KNOW you can trust, do NOT look at the SUN !!! Have fun !!
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The partial solar eclipse has begun ! If you can see the Sun right now you’re in luck. It’s cloudy in London where I am, but this is Jamie Cooper’s view soon after ‘First Contact’. Notice he is NOT LOOKING at the Sun. He’s got a massively dense solar filter taped to the FRONT of his telescope (see third pic) and he has his camera attached at the eyepiece end. Make@sure you and your kids are SAFE ! See previous post on how you can view.
Nearly maximum phase now (peak obscuration by the silhouetted Moon). Again, nice photo by Jamie Cooper – who has better skies than I. And, of course, better technique ! I was lucky a few mins ago – I got about 3 minute glimpse. Used my card with the hole in it – with the other card about a metre away. And also I have some eclipse glasses from last time. Always best to keep some around !
I’m still saying DO NOT LOOK AT THE SUN !! But your camera is more expendable than your eyes !!
Brian May: I’m still saying do not look at the Sun. 10 June 2021
– https://youtu.be/PmA1AZmDMQo
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I stumbled upon this abstract tonight (search that Springer link to see the full paper). Have a look – and if you’re short of time skip to the last paragraph. Then look at WHEN THIS WAS PUBLISHED !!! Whether or not it will be proven that COVID 19 escaped from the lab in Wuhan, that WAS doing these Gain of Function experiments on Coronaviruses, funded at least in part by the USA … surely it’s time to STOP these experiments – which this article claims are of limited value anyway. Surely the risks are too great ? Do we never learn ?
Cheers – Bri