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Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar, in for Alison Stewart. Now, we'll talk about the upcoming solar eclipse, which will take place Monday afternoon in the New York metro area. Here in the Northeast, we won't get the chance to see another total eclipse until 20 years from now in 2044. That's because everything has to be just right. The moon needs to be aligned with the sun. It also needs to be the right distance from the earth, or else the moon's shadow would be too small to entirely block out the sun. That's called an annular eclipse, and you need to be in just the right place on Earth. This is a special moment for sure.

Now, we'll get into some of the best practices and logistics for watching Monday's eclipse, and especially how to do it safely because, listeners, to be clear, it is not safe to look directly at the sun ever. What are the options and where folks around the area could gather to watch the celestial event together? Joining me now is Bart Fried, Executive Vice President of the New York City-based Amateur Astronomers Association. Hi, Bart. Welcome to All of It.

Bart Fried: Hi, Kousha. It's my pleasure to be here.

Kousha Navidar: Let's do some basics first. What exactly happens during a solar eclipse and why is it so infrequent?

Bart Fried: Well, you nailed it when you said everything has to line up. Depending on where you are on the earth, occasionally, the moon will pass directly in front of the sun. If it is close enough to us, and the distance varies on a slight percentage basis, it's a very unusual coincidence that the apparent diameter of the moon is almost exactly the same as the apparent diameter of the sun. If the moon is closer, it completely covers the sun, and that allows us to look at the corona, which is never visible other than during a total solar eclipse, but if the moon is further away, and then what you have is the annular eclipse, which is, they call it the ring of fire, where you see just the ring of the sun around the edge of the moon, and it's still bright enough that you can't see the corona. What's really special about a total solar eclipse is the ability to see something that you can never see otherwise.

Kousha Navidar: It's like the Goldilocks situation, everything has to be just right. For folks that are planning to see it, help us understand the timeline and the direction we should be looking. When will the eclipse begin to be visible in our area and what time will it peak?

Bart Fried: I think it starts around 1 o'clock in this area, 1:00 or 1:30, and it'll peak about 2:30 or so, and then it's done by about 3:30. Basically, it's worth watching periodically throughout the whole process because what's fun is to watch the moon slowly gobble up any sunspots that are happening on the surface of the sun. We're near solar maximum, so it's almost a dead guarantee that there will be sunspots to watch disappear.

Kousha Navidar: If folks wanted to look at it safely, obviously, is there anything about the way the sun's light works during an eclipse that makes it more dangerous, or is it just the fact that a lot of people, more people than usual will be trying to look at the sun?

Bart Fried: I think the temptation is that as the moon passes over a significant percentage of the sun and is gobbling it up, that the temptation is to take off your glasses and try and see that naked eye. The problem is that even 10% of the sun is an exceedingly bright object for your retinas and you really don't want to spend any time staring at the sun even at a 90% eclipse, which is almost what we're going to get here. I think we get about 88% or 89% in New York City. There really is no good time to look at the sun naked eye, but there are plenty of options, which is a good thing.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, let's get into some of those options. There are these special viewing glasses, I think everybody maybe from elementary school remembers being taught about these special glasses. Where can folks get those glasses before the big cosmic show on Monday that basically block out almost all the light?

Bart Fried: New Yorkers are really lucky. The New York Public Library system apparently is making solar eclipse glasses available for free. They're a quality product, and you really need to make sure that if you're buying them somewhere that you're getting them from a very reputable dealer because sadly, there are some products out there that claim to be certified, but, in fact, they're fraudulent and they may or may not actually be safe enough. You definitely want to get them from a reputable dealer, but from the public library, you'd go and they'll just hand you a pair.

Kousha Navidar: We actually did just get a text from a guest that I want to ask. This caller just asked us if glasses from 2017 are still usable. Any sense of what--

Bart Fried: Yes, they don't go bad as long as they haven't been scratched or damaged in any way, they should still be good, but the assumption is that the pair that you got back then were legitimately certified and a quality product. If you don't know that to be the case, why not get a free pair from the library, and then you know you're safe?

Of course, the other thing you can do is in terms of naked eye, you can just do solar projection, which is you can do a pinhole projection system, and there are many ways to do that that you can look up online. One of the funniest ways to do it is to hold up a colander, like a spaghetti colander that has hundreds of holes, and you cast these images onto the ground and you see, instead of one partial eclipse, you see hundreds of little partial eclipses. That's always very picturesque.

Kousha Navidar: Then you can make spaghetti afterwards for dinner. Dinner and a show.

Bart Fried: That's right, and a glass of wine. Toast your success. New York apparently is going to-- the city is going to have some great weather, it looks like. The forecast is really optimal from here in New York City. For people who can't get to a spot where totality is visible, it is definitely worth watching even a good partial solar eclipse.

Kousha Navidar: I want to get into some places where that is possible. We did just get another text before we get to where the word corona is a word that you used when describing the interaction and the image created between the sun and the moon. Can you just define that for listeners?

Bart Fried: Sure. The solar corona is an enigmatic thing. It is a portion of the sun's atmosphere that expands well out past what we see as the visible disk. It's actually a plasma. If I recollect correctly, its temperature is close, somewhere in the neighborhood of a million degrees, but it's the kind of thing where it measures or it's given as a million degrees, but that doesn't mean necessarily that it's a million degrees hot, that it's going to melt everything in sight. That's not actually the case because it's a plasma, but it's not visible. It's not bright enough to see at any given time when you can see any part of the sun. For example, in an annular eclipse, only a small percentage of the sun is actually visible, yet that's still bright enough to swamp out the corona.

Kousha Navidar: I'd love to get to some of the local events before we close out. Your organization, the Amateur Astronomers Association, is going to be hosting a public observation at Green-Wood Cemetery. The events flyer says that there are going to be special edition glasses and telescopes with solar filters, as well as music, hands-on activities, and self-guided tours. What kinds of hands-on activities will be there?

Bart Fried: I am not terribly sure, only because I've been planning on heading out to Texas, but typically, it would be something where kids can draw the sun and draw the planets and things like that and/or there will be models of the solar system, I imagine, or things that they can make. That's usually what we do. I'm not sure. We're doing it, by the way, in conjunction with Pioneer Works. Big shout out to them and in conjunction with Green-Wood Cemetery itself. We've got, I think, on order, we bought 5,000 pairs of special edition eclipse glasses.

Kousha Navidar: Wow. Can you just go over those details one more time, where and the time?

Bart Fried: It'll be at Green-Wood Cemetery, which is in Brooklyn. You can visit Green-Wood Cemetery at any time during the day, but you really want to be there when the eclipse occurs. You want to be there, let's say, from about 1:00 to 4:00 in that area. The actual event is 1:30 to 5:00, that's being supported by us and by Pioneer Works.

Kousha Navidar: It sounds like partiality begins at 2:15, and the peak in Eastern Time is at 3:25 for listeners right now.

Bart Fried: That sounds about right.

Kousha Navidar: Bart, thank you so much. Bart Fried is the Executive Vice President of the New York City-based Amateur Astronomers Association. Thank you so much for joining us and for going through all that with us. Really appreciate it.

Bart Fried: It's really my pleasure. Good luck to everybody that we all have good weather for the eclipse.

Kousha Navidar: Listeners, on Monday, we'll close out our show by talking with Rebecca Boyle, a science writer and author of a new book called Our Moon: How Earth's Celestial Companion Transformed the Planet, Guided Evolution, and Made Us Who We Are. We'll also hear from WNYC Gothamist reporter, Rosemary Misdary, who will be at AAA's event in Green-Wood Cemetery.

 

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