Protect your eyes during the total solar eclipse. Here's where to get glasses
If you haven't purchased or picked up a pair of solar glasses yet, now is the time. You don't want to be left in the dark when a rare total solar eclipse streaks across the Hoosier state on April 8, 2024.
Here's where you can get eclipse glasses in Indiana.
Solar eclipse glasses will be available at Indiana State Parks
The Indiana Department of Natural Resources will have solar eclipse glasses for sale online until March 15 and at state parks and its other managed properties.
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What Indiana State Parks will be in the path of the eclipse?
Indiana has 24 state parks and seven satellite locations, along with seven state park inns, many of which will be in the path of the totality of the eclipse. For a list of locations, visit DNR's website.
Get solar eclipse glasses online
Solar eclipse glasses can be purchased online at the Indiana State Parks website: stores.innsgifts.com while supplies last until Friday, March 15. After that, they'll be available in person at the park. You can buy a set of four for $10. Shipping and handling costs $1.50.
For other trusted online vendors of solar viewers, visit the websites of these manufacturers:
Flip'n Shades (clip-ons for baseball caps)
Seymour Solar (sheets only)
How to ensure your solar eclipse glasses are safe
Looking directly at the sun without proper eye protection can permanently harm your vision or cause blindness. When buying solar glasses, look for this designation: ISO 12312-2. That means the glasses have met the international standard for safely observing the eclipse.
And if the lenses of your solar glasses are scratched damaged? Throw them away.
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Is your city in the path of the 2024 solar eclipse? Check the map.
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Safety tips when viewing a solar eclipse
It's never safe to look directly at the sun without specialized eye protection made for solar viewing. To protect your vision, be sure you're using safe solar viewers, which are thousands of times darker than regular sunglasses and comply with international safety standards.
Scientists at NASA advise people watching an eclipse take the following precautions:
Always use solar viewers, or "eclipse glasses" to watch a solar eclipse outside the "moment of totality," when the moon completely obscures the Sun.
Always supervise children using solar viewers.
DO NOT look at the Sun through a camera lens, telescope, binoculars, or any other device while wearing eclipse glasses. The concentrated solar rays will burn through the filter and can cause serious eye injury.
You can view the eclipse directly without proper eye protection only when the Moon completely obscures the Sun's rays. As soon as you see even a little bit of the sun, immediately put your eclipse glasses back on.
When was the last time Indianapolis saw a total solar eclipse?
Astronomers say the next total eclipse seen from the contiguous United States won't happen again until August 2044. And the last time a total solar eclipse passed over Indianapolis was more than 800 years ago in 1205 when Genghis Khan was consolidating his power in China.
"That 1205 total eclipse path only covered the southwest side of the city," said Butler University Physics & Astronomy professor Brian Murphy in an earlier message to IndyStar. "For the northeast side of the city, the last total eclipse was in 831."
Murphy, who also serves as director for the Holcomb Observatory & Planetarium, said it's not that total solar eclipses are rare — they occur every year or two somewhere on the Earth's surface — it's that width of the totality is relatively small at around 100 miles, and so they pass a given location only once every 400 years or so.
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John Tufts covers trending news for the Indianapolis Star. Send him a news tip at JTufts@Gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Here's where you can get solar eclipse glasses ahead of April 8, 2024
