Who peeked?

[youalright]

Admit it who peeked, can't of just been me 🤣🤣🤣

I didn't peek, due to valuing my eyesight. Don't you value yours, OP?

I was driving home from a horrible day at work and looked by total accident. Was trying to cross onto my road and was looking for oncoming traffic then noticed how bright the sun was and remembered it was the eclipse (very very high stress job & personal life at the min so it was the last thing on my mind) i was sort of looking for a couple of seconds before realising, Im quite worried now as 1 of my eyes feels really blurry/weird and both of my eyes feel really dry.
It was near the start of it all when I looked, the sun was just extremely bright, Anyone know how worried I should be? Is the sun more damaging during an eclipse or is it just that people will stare at it for longer than you would on a normal day that makes it damaging? I am really stressing myself out (have health anxiety as it is)

Oh, I thought it was masturbation that made you blind.

Well we all know what not to do when staring at the sun then...

Just to add, why are some people so unkind and blasé about things that actually matter ie eye health? I mean, did you truly need to make such a horrid remark? We only get one pair of eyes, and even if you think it's not something you're likely to have problems with, it's pretty foolish to deliberately risk being blinded when people tell you otherwise.

I took my eyesight for granted until the consequences nearly cost me. The consultant opthalmologist I saw made it pretty.clear I was risking optic nerve damage if I didn't have treatment. Being blasé about such a precious sense is not funny.

If it was still very bright your pupils will have automatically narrowed. It is more damaging during an eclipse because your pupils don't register it as too bright and they open to allow full light in, as they always do when it's darker. You will probably be ok.

Everyone posting on this site has pretty much the entire history of human learning in their pocket and powerful search engines (no, not AI!) with which to find any information they need. About the basics of languages (including English) and how to safely watch a solar eclipse. They were likely on social media or news apps which publicised this event weeks ago. There isn’t really any excuse for anyone not knowing anything nowadays. It’s general laziness that people aren’t interested in anything more intellectual than Love Island.

e.g. the attached geniuses, who haven’t realised that solar eclipses happen in other places than the UK, or that there are other ways we can understand the impact of using eyes or phone cameras to look directly at the sun. One got as far as googling but didn’t bother to delve any deeper. It’s utterly depressing.

One of my team told me her dad stared at the sun watching an eclipse and did develop very poor vision. I heeded her words and made a really shit pinhole foil box viewer, watched an indiscriminate blob wriggle around without changing (I missed the memo on ‘pin’ hole. Gave up and used DHs 3 pairs of sunnies one on top of the other. It actually worked but I also did a few glances straight at it. It’s a bit crazy that something so far away can blind you.

Being the crafty type…cough…I will start making my own aids and try to train our pug. How hard can it be?

That's awful, surely they must have already been feeling very uncomfortable after 20 minutes?

I knew it was a 90% eclipse. I assumed covering 90% of the sun would make it go dark. I've learnt today it doesn't. This is how we grow and learn. You may think you know everything and have nothing left to learn but like most humans I'm still learning daily. Maybe you should spend less time looking at a screen and more time around other people to learn how everyone is different.

I think looking at the sun for less then 2 seconds is a risk im willing to take considering its in the sky everyday.

I did. I swear it was darker in '99 (I think that was the date)

It can't have just been you. But I fell asleep and missed the whole thing.

During totality
100% totality

To anyone still wanting to watch the skies, meteors in full effect now over Cornwall ❤️

I’ve spent 25 years in HR. More time with people than most spend in a lifetime. I stand by my comments.

(I shall write books one day.)

It takes only a few seconds to cause permanent eye damage. There is no "safe" window of time to look at an eclipse without protection, even a few seconds can cause permanent retinal burn

So you've never looked at the sun?

@youalright no. I have never looked at the sun, other than inadvertently.a sunset over the sea or a dawn sunrise, yes.... but it is actually extremely uncomfortable to look at the sun, our life giving star, when it it is in plain sight, have you not noticed that ? You may not be able to notice much at all soon 🤷‍♀️

It was pretty uncomfortable looking at it last night to just the same as looking at the sun any other time

@NotTheHRPolice I agree that people's apparent ignorance can be depressing. I just thought it was harsh that you judged her for using 'of' instead of 'have' and assuming she therefore didn't know much. Yes, we all have instant access to a world of information but we can't possibly know or understand all of it. We all have our own weaknesses and strengths and different interests.

Yes, with bare eyes!
The image was only temporarily burned onto my retinas, I am glad to say.
We can all meet at the cataract clinic in a few years time.

I thought that you wouldn't see anything if you looked without glasses anyway?