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Message: <blockquote data-quote="brocknroller" data-source="post: 3170337" data-attributes="member: 665">I have projected eclipse images through my telescope onto a large white piece of cardboard for people to watch in the field across from the house. I explained that they shouldn't look directly at the sun even while it's covered by the moon (could get one of Bailey's Beads in their eye!), but some couldn't resist and took a quick glance at totality. Even noted astronomer/journalist and amateur astronomy enthusiast Timothy Ferris fell victim to this irresistible spectacle, which he wrote about in his book, Seeing in the Dark. He looked at the eclipse during totality and didn't get away from the EP fast enough as the sun peered out from behind the moon. He burned a spot on his retina and saw a red spot in the eye for awhile.You don't have to be an amateur astronomer for this to happen, it also happened to me while watching birds. I was following some swallows chasing bugs over the field in the late afternoon. They zigzag so quickly, they're hard to follow, and as I was quickly panning, I "ran into" the sun. I immediately closed my eyes as soon as I realized this, but it was too late, the sun burned a spot in my left eyeball (it's also the eye I have a cataract in, perhaps by no coincidence). I saw a round red spot afterimage for a few months. I visited the eye doctor, and he said some gel had sloughed off the back of my eye, but was only partially torn so I was seeing the shadow of that gel. So looking at the sun through a telescope or binoculars can be harmful, and when you're following birds in the sky with a low hanging sun, you need to be extra careful. Glancing at the sun naked eye for a second won't harm you, because you can't look long enough before its brightness forces you to look away, otherwise, we'd all be blind. But during an eclipse, people get a false sense of security that they can watch the sun because it's darkened, but they run the risk of damaging their vision if the sun emerges before they can look away. When I lived on the "Mean Streets" of New Jersey, home to Joe Piscopo, Kevin Spacey, Alan Alda, Derek Jeter, and "the Boss," the son of a local pet shop was told not to look at the sun because there was going to be an eclipse so he walked around that day with his chin buried in his chest. Ironically, he ran into a stop sign and got a nice sized bump on his head. I also had a friend named Marlene who refused to look at Comet Hale-Bopp through a telescope because she thought it would burn her eye out, and I couldn't convince her otherwise. Brock</blockquote>

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