With less than two weeks before the eclipse — the first total solar eclipse to cross coast-to-coast in 99 years — people are scrambling to buy the special glasses that allow you to watch the cosmic happening unfold safely.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The American Astronomical Society is warning about a “flood” of fake solar eclipse glasses on the market that may damage eyesight if used during the Aug. 21 event.
With less than two weeks before the eclipse — the first total solar eclipse to cross coast-to-coast in 99 years — people are scrambling to buy the special glasses that allow you to watch the cosmic happening unfold safely.
While a 70-mile wide swath of the country from Oregon to South Carolina will experience total darkness for more than two minutes during the eclipse, everyone in North America will see at least a partial eclipse.
But it is only safe to watch with the glasses or a handheld solar filter with the appropriate lenses. Regular sunglasses are not enough to keep out harmful solar rays, even when the sun is partly covered.
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“The problem with fakes is that you can’t know if they’re letting unsafe levels of solar ultraviolet and/or infrared radiation into your eyes,” said Richard Tresch Fienberg, a press officer with the AAS. “You’d never know until it’s too late, because our retinas don’t have pain receptors.”
The AAS previously advised people to look for “ISO 12312-2” printed on the glasses to ensure they complied with international safety standards for filters of direct viewing of the sun.
“But now the marketplace is being flooded by counterfeit eclipse glasses that are labeled as if they’re ISO-compliant when in fact they are not,” AAS said. “Even more unfortunately, unscrupulous vendors can grab the ISO logo off the Internet and put it on their products and packaging even if their eclipse glasses or viewers haven’t been properly tested.”
The only time it’s safe to take the glasses off during the eclipse is in the path of totality during the brief time the sun is fully covered by the moon and only the corona is visible. Florida will experience about 80 percent of the sun being covered by the moon, so it won’t be safe at any time to remove the glasses while viewing the eclipse.
Although the sun is no brighter during an eclipse than on a regular day, it is more comfortable to look at, meaning the impulse to look away won’t be as strong. Fienberg said ordinary sunglasses transmit 10 to 20 percent of the light that falls on them. This makes the landscape on a bright sunny day easier to look at without squinting, and cuts down on glare.
Eclipse glasses allow just 0.0001 percent of the light that falls on them through.
The AAS is now recommending people ensure their glasses are ISO certified and come from reputable vendors that it has verified and listed on its website, www.eclipse.aas.org.
“What you absolutely should not do is search for eclipse glasses on the internet and buy whatever pops up in the ads or search results,” the AAS said in a statement.
NASA recommends glasses from the companies Rainbow Symphony, American Paper Optics, Thousand Oaks Optical and TSE 17.
Fienberg said he bought counterfeit glasses in a New Hampshire store recently that looked nearly the same as real ones printed by a reputable company called America Paper Optics. He said true American Paper Optics glasses have oval lenses and metal coating on one side.
Several school districts in Georgia, where a portion of the state will experience totality, have delayed dismissal times to make sure students safely view the eclipse. Atlanta Public Schools purchased 50,000 glasses for students.
“A solar eclipse should never be watched the same way we should not stare at the sun,” said Alberto Ortiz, an ophthalmologist with Mittleman Eye in West Palm Beach. “It causes toxicity to the retina and can even cause permanent vision loss.”