THE POLK COUNTY
Pulse
October 11, 2023
News 9
ECLIPSE graph the eclipse, beyond the safety of According to the handout during Dr. continued from page 2 one’s eyesight, there is also the safety of G’s presentation, which differs slightly
not safe for looking directly at the sun. In April 2024, there will be less than 4:28 in western Arkansas.
the camera. “Most of the camera lenses do not tolerate the high-intensity light. It could damage the camera.” Once again, a filter would be a wise precaution.
Telescopes and cameras During the presentation, Dr. G showed an image of telescopes. The science club Other presentations is hoping to use the telescopes for the In the same partnership with OMRL total eclipse. and UARM, NASA certified ambassa“Dr. Timmerman, who was here as dor Kathy Rusert did presentations at an instructor, had those telescopes and the area’s public schools for lower elehe wanted us to use them. These are mentary and at Montgomery County the sophisticated ones. These are huge, Library. She did presentations at Louthey have all the necessary equipment ise Durham, Holly Harshman, Acorn, and accessories needed. These would Oden, and Cossatot River Primary. be more scientific than if you order Montgomery County Library and from somewhere — maybe Amazon or Polk County Library are branches of the Walmart — [most] would be smaller Ouachita Mountains Regional Library. and I could not guarantee they would be To prepare for western Arkansas’ toverified scientifically.” tal eclipse on Apr. 8, 2024, OMRL and There are necessary precautions the UARM’s Lifelong Learning will hold when looking at the eclipse through a additional presentations in the spring. telescope. “They would need the solar Watch for details in the coming months. filter before they are able to view anything through the telescope. Telescopes Viewing alternatives are not for seeing the sun or any bright If you do not have solar eclipse glasses lights. They are only for the nighttime or plan on making a pinhole projector sky: stars, maybe the galaxies, the moon from household items such as a cereal or planets. You can see those easily. or shoe box, and other miscellaneous “For the sun, the telescope has lens- items (see “How to Make a Box Pines it concentrates the light through the hole Projector” on the NASA Goddard lenses so the eyes could be damaged. YouTube page) for the Oct. 14 eclipse, You have to be careful and should put you have another option. NASA will the verified solar filter on them. You can’t just buy a solar filter and take a risk. It has to be verified.” Verified filters for solar eclipse glasses are ISO 123122, which supersede earlier national and regional standards. There is at present no international standard for optical solar filters, but the ISO-12312-2 should be safe for use with optics as long as the user closely Kathy Rusert doing one of several eclipse presentations. (Photo submitted by UARM) follows the instructions. The science club is not thinking of having a feed from the telescopes host live coverage starting at 11:30 a.m. to a video screen or recording device, EDT. live on NASA Television, the agenbut Dr. G said it is a possibility. The club cy’s website, and the NASA app. NASA will mainly be observing the eclipse just also will stream the broadcast live on its as a hobby and something fun. Facebook, X, and YouTube social media For those people wanting to photo- accounts.
from the information previously mentioned, the partial eclipse should begin at approximately 10:26 a.m. CDT, reach its maximum of 71% coverage, known as its annularity, around 11:55 a.m. and lasts between one to five minutes. The eclipse will be fully over by 1:30 p.m. for western Arkansas. At press time on Tuesday morning, the weather forecast for the annular eclipse reveals it will be somewhere probably in the low-to-mid-60s, a few clouds early on with a 20% chance of rain, then becoming mostly sunny. The United States will not experience another total solar eclipse until Aug. 23, 2044. To find out more about the annular eclipse, visit https://solarsystem.nasa. gov/eclipses/2023/oct-14-annular/ where-when/. To find out more about the total eclipse, visit https://solarsystem.nasa. gov/eclipses/2024/apr-8-total/overview/ or https://visitmena.com/events/ solar-eclipse-festival/.
Sun photos taken within seconds of one another without a filter (top) and with a verified NASA filter (bottom). (Ethan Nahté/Pulse)
