Tomorrow, most of the UK will see roughly 90% of the Sun disappear behind the Moon — the best partial solar eclipse visible from Britain since 1999, and the biggest sky event Yorkshire’s had in years.
It happens gradually through the morning, so nobody needs to plan their whole day around it, but it’s worth ten minutes outside if the sky’s clear. What matters more is doing it safely.
The UK Health Security Agency is blunt about the risk: looking at an eclipsed Sun is more dangerous than looking at a normal one, because the dimmed light suppresses the urge to look away, while the Sun’s radiation can still damage your retina without you feeling a thing. Ordinary sunglasses, however dark, do nothing to stop this.
To view it directly, you need eclipse glasses or a handheld solar viewer certified to ISO 12312-2:2015(E), with no scratches, tears or pinholes in the filter. No glasses to hand? A pinhole in a piece of card, a kitchen colander, or even the dappled shade under a tree will safely project a crescent-shaped image of the eclipse onto the ground, with no need to look anywhere near the Sun itself.
Prof Jim Wild, President of the Royal Astronomical Society, put it simply: “Never look directly at the Sun without appropriate solar viewing equipment.”
If you’ve got kids, elderly relatives, or anyone likely to be curious tomorrow, this is one of those pieces of advice worth actually passing on — a quick message to the family group chat could save someone’s eyesight.
