It’s been 6 years since it happened in Columbus. How to safely view the solar eclipse

Shawn Cruzen has been working in astronomy for more than 30 years, but still gushes while talking about a cosmic convergence, such as the two solar eclipses that will occur in the next six months: Oct. 14, 2023, and April 8, 2024.

“It’s an opportunity to get new people involved with the excitement and the emotion that comes from these special events,” Cruzen, the executive director of the Columbus State University Coca-Cola Space Science Center, told the Ledger-Enquirer. “Rare sky alignments, eclipses, aurora borealis, meteor showers, these are all great events to get the kids outside, to let them see something that’s tactile, that’s real, rather than on the screen.

“It really inspires in a unique and different way. … You just never know what’s going to spark that excitement, that sense of adventure in a child or young person.”

What’s a solar eclipse?

A solar eclipse is when the Moon moves between the Sun and the Earth. This casts a shadow on the Earth and fully or partially blocks the Sun’s light.

NASA categorizes four types of solar eclipses:

• A total solar eclipse happens when the Moon completely blocks the face of the Sun. This darkens the sky, as if it were dawn or dusk in the middle of the day. This also allows people in the path of totality to see the Sun’s corona, the luminous outer atmosphere, which usually isn’t visible because the Sun’s face is too bright.

• An annular solar eclipse happens when the Moon is at or near its farthest point of its orbit when it moves between the Earth and the Sun, so it appears smaller in the sky and doesn’t cover all of the Sun’s face. This alignment makes the Moon appear as a dark disk in front of a larger and bright disk, the Sun, creating what looks like an annulus (ring shape) around the Moon.

• A partial solar eclipse happens when the Earth, the Moon and the Sun aren’t perfectly lined up, and only part of the Sun appears to be covered, giving it a crescent shape.

• A hybrid solar eclipse happens when an eclipse shifts between annular and total.

The next two solar eclipses visible in the United States will be annular Oct. 14 and total April 8, but folks in Columbus and the Chattahoochee Valley aren’t in the path of annularity or totality, so they will see partial eclipses.

The path of annularity for the Oct. 14 solar eclipse will start in Oregon at 9:13 a.m. PDT and end in Texas at 12:03 p.m. CDT, according to GreatAmericanEclipse.com. The width will range from 118-137 miles, according to Space.com, and it also will cross northern California, northeast Nevada, central Utah, northeast Arizona, southwest Colorado and central New Mexico.

The path of totality for the April 8 solar eclipse will start in Texas at 1:27 p.m. CDT and end in Maine at 3:35 p.m. EDT. The width will range from 100-123 miles, and it also will cross part of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont and New Hampshire.

How to safely view the Oct. 14 eclipse in Columbus

Never directly look at a solar eclipse without proper eye protection, just like you shouldn’t stare at the Sun anytime because you could permanently harm your eyesight.

“The little sliver of Sun that is still showing is plenty enough to damage your eyes, particularly if you’ve got telescopes or binoculars,” Cruzen said.

That’s why Cruzen encourages folks to join the free viewing event Oct. 14 at the CSU Coca-Cola Space Science Center, 701 Front Ave., from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., to use professional telescopes and binoculars with proper filters for safe viewing.

“The neutral density filters and hydrogen alpha filters give a little more detail of the surface features on the Sun,” he said.

The Oct. 14 partial solar eclipse in Columbus will start at 11:42 a.m., peak at 1:13 p.m., and end at 2:47 p.m., according to TimeAndDate.com. About 53% of the Sun’s disk will be covered by the Moon at the eclipse’s maximum in Columbus, Cruzen said.

“With more than half the Sun covered up, … you’ll definitely notice the light drop,” he said, “and you might think that there’s a cloud moving in front of the Sun.”

The center’s gift shop sells eclipse-viewing safety glasses for $3. If you buy them elsewhere, Cruzen advises checking to ensure they have a code written on the inside of the glasses to certify they have been rated for safety.

For folks who don’t attend the center’s event, don’t have access to a properly filtered telescope or binoculars and don’t have safety glasses, Cruzen suggests another alternative to safely view the eclipse.

Use a pin or the tip of a pencil or pen to puncture a tiny hole at the end of a shoebox. Point the hole at the Sun. The light shining through the hole will project an image of the Sun on the other end of the box.

“What’s neat is that pinhole actually acts like a lens,” he said. “So you can see features on the Sun. You could see a bird fly by or clouds moving in front of the Sun. … You might want to leave part of the lid of that shoebox on so it covers most of that path of light. … That makes a really nice at-home way to be able to enjoy the eclipse on your own.”

Rain or clouds could obscure viewing of an eclipse, but the Weather Channel’s Oct. 14 forecast for Columbus predicts partly cloudy skies and only a 24% chance of rain.

The last solar eclipse visible in Columbus was Aug. 21, 2017, when it was a total eclipse for some parts of the U.S. but partial in the Chattahoochee Valley. After the Oct. 14 and April 8 solar eclipses, the next one visible in Columbus will be Jan. 26, 2028, when an annular eclipse will be seen in parts of South America, Europe and Africa but partial in the Chattahoochee Valley.