Solar Eclipse Today

A physics and astronomy professor at the UW-Fond du Lac says in this area we will only see a partial eclipse of the sun. Dr. Carey Woodward says by partial it means just under 82 percent of the sun will be covered during the solar eclipse today. He recommends not staring at it directly with the naked eye because it can cause retina burn. He says there are ways of viewing it safely. He says for instance you can see it by watching through the leaves of a tree. He says look at the ground under the leaves of a tree. He says the leaves form natural pinhole cameras. The ground under the tree will be covered with crescent images of the sun, which he says is spectacular. He says if you have time you could make your own pinhole camera by getting directions by doing an internet search for “NASA pinhole camera.” Woodward says it is very difficult to get a picture of an eclipse especially if all you are using is a smart phone camera. He says it will look like a tiny, fuzzy dot or blob. The eclipse will begin at 11:53 a.m., reaches its zenith at 1:16 p.m., and end around 2:38 p.m. Woodward says the last full eclipse viewed in Fond du Lac was in 1868 and the next one won’t be until 2099.