CHAMPAIGN–
Mats Selen previews the upcoming eclipse and tells us how to view the sun without hurting our eyes.
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The sun puts out a lot of energy. Even though it is 93 million miles away, looking at it with your bare eyes will very quickly hurt your eyes and can cause blindness.
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To illustrate this I will show how to use the sun and a magnifying glass to light a fire. The magnifying glass is just like the lens in your eye – just a bit bigger.
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We will build a pin-hole camera using a cardboard box, and will show how the pin-hole functions just like a lens does.
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I will show some eclipse glasses and some pictures I took of the sun using my cell phone and these glasses. (I think you can buy eclipse glasses at the Parkland Planetarium for $1).