Anyone skipping this eclipse thing then?

the camera lens will focus the light on the camera sensor increasing the heat to hot enough to damage it.

Like starting a fire with a magnifying glass

It won't damage the screen, but it could damage the camera if you point it directly at the sun for a prolonged period, or zoom in on the sun. You're supposed to use a filter on the camera. Obviously people take pics with the sun in all the time, and a quick pic is fine.

Hospitals are also worried that people will look too long at the sun whilst they line up the shot. You just know that the insta crowd will be out there going to any lengths to get the perfect pic. Honestly, people are that stupid, you can guarantee there will be loads of eye injuries today.

The news channels are going bonkers over this when we need weeks of rain instead ! Loads of it

Oh no that’s a shame

I’m not overly fussed if I’m honest but I will probably pop in the garden with my colander.

What I’m most excited about is the forecast of some rain next week. I’m in East Anglian and have been praying for this for weeks……please let this be true.

Really not interested, it will be all on the news anyway. I am not upsetting my eyes for that. I know two poorly sighted men who looked at the sun

I'm excited, made the cereal box/tin foil/done the pin hole thing as i left it too late to buy glasses 🙄😪

Its clear here so will definitely be outside. I won't be alive for the next one so might aswell experience it

I have a female tawny owl near my house that's driving me nuts. Every night she starts up with her constant "keewick", but there's no male to answer her. I understand she's sexually frustrated, but it's getting embarassing. I hope she doesn't start up during the eclipse.

I have glasses and I am amazed that we still have a cloud-free sky.

DD has a holiday job in a pub and one of the locals told her about it when he heard she was off to Spain tonight. If anybody is on the ferry to Santander this evening she is there with some spares because it was about 50p more to buy a dozen pairs versus 2 or 3 when we bought them on Amazon last month.

2015 I remember standing in the garden at work (East Anglia) and while it didn’t get particularly dark (more like an overcast afternoon), the birds all stopped twittering and we got that weird solar wind thing that you sometimes hear about.

I’ll be standing in the garden with a colander seeing as I’ll most likely be dead by the time the next one to cross the UK comes around.

It is on my bucket list to witness a total eclipse though so I shall have to start planning some holidays!

Can you fake a toilet break?!

also, I really want some Jaffa cakes now and am quite cross that I didn’t think to add some to my weekly shop 😪

Will people please explain how the sun on your phone screen will damage your phone?

DH and I missed the last one as we were asleep having stayed up until dawn at a beach party. We'll be outside but not watching it.

It's cloudy as fuck here so I doubt there will be much to get excited about.

Shutting the Pigeons down is fine by me and the wood peckers who wake me up with the windows open at 5am

In 1999 all the birds 🦅 went quiet and it felt very eerie. You should definitely go outside and try to experience it

Enough people thought that in 99!

I dont want to skip it, but I have a meeting from 5.45pm.until about 7.30pm in a tiny windowless box.

I have eclipse envy

Not bothering. I saw 1966, 1999 and 2015. The last two were very sunny where I was (London and West Mids) and work gave us all those cardboard glasses for the 1999 one. 2015 I used a paper pinhole and a colander, both of which worked as expected but I wouldn't get out of bed to see the same again.

It's a schlep to anywhere with a clear view of the western horizon. I think you should make the effort if it's your first chance to see a solar eclipse, though.

It's really clouded over while I was typing this! Might be nothing to see by the evening, anyway 🌥☁

@Lemonyyy I was about to say I bet I'm not the only one who bought Jaffa cakes ( to teach the kids about the eclipse, of course)

Course you can, with brief glances. How often do you accidentally look at the sun when you turn a corner while driving, for example? Obviously you can't stand and stare at it for a full hour, but a glance won't hurt anyone.

When we were at school we used to play a game to see who could look at the sun for the longest, and none of us damaged our vision.

I thought you weren’t meant to do that. You could wreck your camera and/or phone.

Why are you giving people incorrect advice that can damage their phones?

In a full eclipse it has been known to get quite dark, and all the birds go quiet as they think its night!
Last partial one I was working in school, we made a pinhole in a piece of paper and put another piece below it so that you can see the shadow there. I like the colander idea ! Sadly all the kids were seriously unimpressed which was a shame.