Eclipse safety – how to protect your eyes

The Sun can damage your eyes even when it is almost completely covered. The retina has no pain receptors, so you only notice the damage afterwards.

• Never look directly at the Sun without certified eclipse glasses that meet the ISO 12312-2 standard. Ordinary sunglasses do not protect your eyes, not even several pairs on top of each other.
• Check your glasses before use: they must be marked ISO 12312-2 and show the manufacturer's name, and the filter must have no scratches or holes. Throw away damaged glasses.
• Never look at the Sun through a camera, binoculars or a telescope while wearing eclipse glasses – the optics concentrate the light and destroy both the filter and your eye. Optics need their own solar filter in front of the lens.
• Children should always have an adult beside them and keep their glasses on the whole time they look towards the Sun.
• Only during totality itself, when the Sun is completely covered, is it safe to take the glasses off. Put them back on as soon as the first point of light appears.
• The eclipse is partial here. It is never safe to look at the Sun without protection – not even when almost all of it is covered.
• A safe alternative: make a hole with a pin in a piece of card and let the Sun shine through onto a white sheet of paper. You will see the eclipsed Sun as a small projected image.
• Eclipse glasses often sell out in the weeks before an eclipse. Buy them in good time from a known retailer.
• Damage to the retina does not hurt and is often noticed only hours later. Seek medical care if your vision feels blurred or distorted after looking at the Sun.

How to prepare

• Get certified glasses in good time – one pair per person.
• Look around you too: the light, the shadows, the birds and the temperature all change.
• To photograph the Sun you need a solar filter in front of the lens. Without a filter you can photograph the light and the shadows.
• The calculation assumes a clear sky. Nobody can forecast the weather a year ahead.