PORTLAND, Maine — It’s time to get ready for the upcoming solar eclipse. Beat the rush and get your eyeball-safe equipment together now.
No, it’s not the eclipse due to totally blot out the sun over Maine in April 2024. We’re talking about the annular eclipse on Oct. 14.
It may not have the landscape-darkening punch of a full occultation, but it’s still an impressive sight to see and great viewing practice for the total eclipse coming next year. As a bonus, this annular eclipse will take place midday on a Saturday.
Annular — or partial — eclipses happen when the moon is at its furthest point from us and then passes between Earth and the sun. At that time, the moon appears smaller than the sun and does not completely cover the star.
By contrast, when the moon gets between Maine and the sun in April 2024, it will be closer to the Earth, thus appearing large enough to block the sun altogether.
The Oct. 14 eclipse will start around 12:20 p.m. As the moon starts passing between the Earth and sun, it will begin to appear as a dark, rounded shadow on our star’s lower right side. The eclipse will reach its height at around 1:25 p.m. when the moon blots out a little more than 10 percent of the sun. After that, the apparent shadow will recede. By 2:30 p.m., it will be over.
The best place in the U.S. to view this annular eclipse will be near San Antonio, Texas, where the moon’s dark circle will travel directly through the sun’s center, creating the so-called “ring of fire” effect. No matter where you are, it’s never safe to look directly at the sun during a partial eclipse.
“Viewing any part of the bright [sun] through a camera lens, binoculars, or a telescope without a special-purpose solar filter secured over the front of the optics will instantly cause severe eye injury,” the official NASA eclipse event page states.
To see the annular eclipse, and most of next year’s total eclipse, you’ll need solar viewing glasses, often known as eclipse glasses. They are thousands of times darker than your typical shades and comply with international safety standards.
You can order a pair from any reputable telescope or science equipment dealer. But the annular eclipse is less than a month away and eclipse glasses are likely to get scarce by the time our total eclipse gets here next year. So, you probably don’t want to delay that purchase.
If you can’t get eclipse glasses, you can always use the indirect viewing method. That involves punching a small hole in a piece of cardboard and looking at the sun’s projected image as light pours through the tiny hole, hitting some dark surface. Be sure to only look at the projection. Don’t look at the sun directly through the hole.
If you want to get fancy with your pinhole projector, NASA has good directions for a deluxe version made from a shoebox and aluminum foil. Another great projection method is to hold a colander upside down over a dark piece of paper and let its multiple tiny holes project a myriad of sun images at once. The effect can be quite beautiful.
Mainers wanting to watch the annular eclipse with other people or get a peep through an eclipse-safe telescope have at least a couple of options: The University of Maine’s Versant Power Astronomy Center will host a viewing event at 11:30 a.m. culminating with public ganders of the eclipse through the Clark Telescope; and eclipse viewing is part of this year’s 10th annual Stars over Katahdin event at the Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument.
Here’s hoping clouds don’t ruin the fun.
