By Stephen Smoot
Those enthralled with all things astronomy will get a real treat next Monday as a total eclipse of the Sun will make its way from Texas in the southwest to the Great Lakes. This gives Americans a rare opportunity to witness the spectacular event.
A solar eclipse occurs when the path of the Moon’s revolution around the Earth puts it in the path of the light of the daytime sun. While the total eclipse field will follow a narrow band across North America, West Virginians will still get to view a dramatic level of coverage.
According to an interactive map on TimeandDate.com, Shinnston will start seeing a diminution of light starting at precisely 1:59 PM on Monday April 8. From then until 3:16, visible sunlight will fade. At that minute, 94.29 percent of the visible light of the Sun will be blocked by the Moon.
In areas of total eclipse, the Sun’s light will disappear entirely for approximately seven minutes.
Sunlight will return to normal in Shinnston at 4:29 PM.
Most understand that looking at the Sun’s intensely bright visible light can cause blindness. Attempting to look at the Sun with the naked eye during an eclipse can do far worse damage. Radiation and intense light outside of the visible spectrum from the Sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, can do intense damage.
West Virginians will see an eclipse with a sliver of visible crescent. Ralph Chou, professor emeritus at the School of Optometry & Vision Science at the University of Waterloo in Canada, told Space.com that “I have seen instances where the patient has eventually shown up with crescents burned into the back of the eye, and you can almost tell exactly when they looked.”
According to Scientific American, “sunlight damages the eyes by triggering a series of chemical reactions in the retina, the light-sensitive part at the back of the eye. Retinas contain two types of photoreceptors: rods that help you see in the dark and cones that produce color vision. When intense solar radiation hits the retinas, it can damage and even destroy those cells.”
Experts at NASA urge those wanting to view the eclipse to obtain special equipment to view the eclipse safely. These can include special eclipse glasses or a handheld solar viewer that complies with the ISO 12312-2 international standard
Never use cameras, binoculars, or telescopes that do not have special solar filters to block the harmful light and radiation. Regular sunglasses cannot protect a viewer’s eyes from these harmful rays, either.