Solar eclipse idiots

[Irregularelephant]

The amount of people on my social media feed i have seen using a colander to stare directly at the sun through it rather than casting a shadow with it to view. Or people who have permanently damaged their phones from the glare. Or the knock off glasses from dodgy websites that arent certified.
IABU: they will all be fine
IANBU: They have damaged there eyes and are silly

"They were all competing who could look longest."

WTF? How old are they? Why did their parents allow such stupidity?

😂😂 sad how true this is

DH had an (unrelated) appointment with eye casualty this morning, and we joked it would be packed.

It was.

10 and 13. Multiple adults told them to stop. Bloody stupid.

I saw someone used a welding helmet from the 1960’s!

The BBC advocated the colander method.

Ahahaha

The BBC said to use it to see the shadow of the eclipse. Not to stare at the sun through it.

Not as bad as the people complaining it wasnt very good.

I think you can take photos, but people were saying to just watch the eclipse through your camera? So extended exposure is the problem, the same as the difference between glancing at the sun for a split second and staring at for a while.

Personally, I have no idea how anyone can do that, I can barely keep my eyes open outdoors when the sun is behind me. Looking at it is like being stabbed in the eyeballs!

Yes I know.

I agree. I didn't have the glasses so tried the colander trick but it was pretty useless as I was in Scotland and it was too cloudy. But the BBC instructions were pretty confusing so for a moment I wondered if I should in fact be holding it up to the sun. Don't worry fellow readers. I didn't so my eyes remain intact.

Yep. Smacks of the 'idiots flocking to beaches' threads during Covid.

Of course the posters themselves were doing the 'flocking' too, but their flocking was different and not at all idiotic.

I assume also that because much of the sun was obscured, everyone’s pupils (when not looking at it) would be larger than when it was fully visible. But the part which remained visible would still be as bright as usual.

How do you know it was from the 1960s?

Was it psychedelic?

They happen every 18 months.

That is exactly correct. The extremely bright (normal) rays around the shadow hit the retina through the dilated pupil and burn it. It is my understanding that the nerve endings on the retina don't register pain but the damage is extensive. (This was all explained by an astronomer on the radio last night).

Go outside and touch grass.

I don't know.

Obviously it would be very, very unwise to stare at the eclipse for minutes on end.

Not disputing that at all.
The trouble is though does a quick accidental glance do damage?

How is having a quick accidental glance any different from seeing the sun on a normal day?

I know that the reply will be dim to strong light but people with blackout blinds often open them and are confronted with strong sun.

So I'm thinking staring for minutes on end is stupid.
Quick accidental glance OK?

If so why not just say that in the advice.
Probably lots of people panicking now as they accidentally saw it for a second.

Is it just about the lowest common denominator?

I'm not being goady or anything. I'd appreciate input.

To add I can't help but think that
a lot of people at the opticians today will not all be idiots at all but those panicking having accidentally caught a glimpse.

I seem to recall in '99 the advice was simply not to stare at it.
Which made sense.

I have no sympathy for anyone who damaged their eyes doing stupid stuff against advice.

Perhaps you didn't intentionally portray the numbers in this way, but your post reads as if to suggest that 40,000,000 people in the UK looked directly at the eclipse in 1999, and only 70 of those people got significant eye damage.

Hopefully, you understand that in 1999 (and 1996) the expert advice not to look at the eclipse was readily available in the media - this isn't something that became known later, due to the internet. I was a child at the time and it was drilled into us, I remember making the cardboard viewing boxes in school.

I'm not sure where you got the 40,000,000 number from, but that's nearly 2/3 of the UK population at the time so I'd guess it's an estimated number of those who in some way "watched" the eclipse in 1999 - but "watched it" does not mean that they looked directly at it with no protection. I "watched it" myself through a (safe, strong, certified) welder's helmet that my parents put on me.

I don't know how many people looked directly at the eclipse with no eye protection in 1999 but common sense says it wasn't 2/3 of the UK population. So if you want to calculate the chances of getting eye damage from looking at it without protection based on 1999 figures, you'd be better off going with a number of 70 out of however many looked directly at it back then, rather than 70 out of 40,000,000 who participated in the event in some way.

I seem to remember that magazines were being sold with special glasses as free giveaways? And you could buy them in supermarkets and chemists, I’m sure. There was a lot on the news about it.

I commented on a SM post when someone saying “the colander didn’t work” I nicely told her that the colander was to close to the paper- really wanted to call her a numnuts but she at least didn’t look through it!!

I suggested this to dh, but he said he wasn't risking his stupidly expensive scope. Seen loads of people doing it. 😒