You have heard it before, but it really is true! Looking at the Sun for longer than a few brief moments with an unprotected eye can lead to permanent damage. Looking at the Sun with any sort of optical deceive that has not been properly filtered can lead to instantaneous eye damage.
The complex sunspot AR2192 visible on 24 October, 2014
Discussed below are the only safe methods I am aware of to view the Sun. There are some dodgy methods out there. Take chance with your irreplaceable eyesight? I think not. Be careful and do it right if you want a look.
For the unaided eye there are a couple options to view the Sun safely…
A very young moon over Waikoloa, this is only 26 hours after new, visible to the unaided eye as a sliver in the fading glow of sunsetNew Moon will occur today at 04:39HST.
It was a perfect day to do an astronomy outreach event. Of course as it was a daytime event, only one star is available for viewing in the telescopes… The Sun. Set up a few solar telescopes for an astro outreach event.
Josh showing the crowd our Sun in the telescopeA simple plan… Set up in the lawn in front of Keck Observatory headquarters and wait for the crowds around the telescopes. Not that I have any illusions about our little outreach event drawing huge crowds. There is a method to my plan, we do this on the same day as Cherry Blossom Festival!
The festival guarantees a huge crowd of people for an outreach event, no advertising needed. The main part of the festival takes place along church row where the cherry trees are, next door to Keck headquarters. Much of the available parking is at the shopping centers on the other side of headquarters. There is a steady stream of hundreds of people right through our lawn. All we needed to do was to set up and be ready for a crowd.
A few friendly looking telescopes, a couple signs with the prominent word “free”… We had a crowd! As one would expect they came in surges, for four hours it varied between a few people at each telescope to a good sized line at every telescope, with up to fifty people gathered around at at time. We had three telescopes operating, two eight inch telescopes with white light filters and the Coronado PST providing a hydrogen alpha view.
Tomorrow morning a beautiful trio of two planets and the Moon will rise in the dawn. Venus will rise first at 5:02HST, followed shortly thereafter by the Moon and Mercury nearly together. The trio will form a neat triangle about 6° across. The planets will rise an hour before the light of dawn spreads across the sky and nearly two hours before sunrise.
What is modern? What is traditional? What is different about these two words and what they mean? Is there any real difference? I would argue that there is not and never has been any real difference, except in the minds of those who want to see it. A sort of golden age idealism, that somehow things were better back whenever.
A Hawaiian double hulled canoe awaiting a crew below Pu’ukohala HeiauToo many seem to think there is some massive disconnect between the traditional and modern. They make an artificial distinction between our modern way of life, our current way of doing things and the ancient traditional way of living. Those who take a better look at the past know this to be false.
We are human, ancient humans were far more modern than many seem to envision. Many think of the past and see some cartoon version of people who are somehow less than we are today. A view of the past created by so many movies, so many bad historical melodramas.
If one were able to stroll down a street in ancient Rome you would see a city every bit as complex as a modern metropolis. All of the people you would meet completely recognizable in their roles. No cars or electric lights, but there are police and politicians, barbers and butchers, a world quite similar to our own.
We have a lot of fun when the kids come to visit. We regularly offer tours of Keck to local school groups. When they come we lay in a schedule of activities… Solar telescopes, an IR camera demonstration, tours of our remote operations, the activities can vary depending on the grade level.
After the last tour we got a packet of thank you letters from one of the classes. These are just fun to read, it is great to see what the kids remember from their visit. A drawing of telescopes set up in the lawn caught my eye, I was responsible for running the solar telescope activity!
A thank you letter from a student after a tour of Keck Observatory
The New York Public Library has just published 187 thousand digital images online. The collection is staggering in its volume, a collection of images that ranges across the spectrum of American and even world history. One could publish an interesting blog simply mining this huge collection for the historical tidbits it contains. World events to restaurant menus, there is just so much there.
An eruption taking place in the Mokuʻāweoweo caldera of Mauna Loa. Credit: NYPL Image CollectionI did a few quick searches for interesting Hawaiian images. Most of the images showing the islands are either postcards or stereoscopic pairs. There are views of typical tourist scenes such as Diamond Head and surfing at Waikiki. There are quite a few images of the plantation era, sugar mills and such, as well as quite a few simple “pastoral” images with little context or interest.
In addition to the images there is a great deal of other material. Old engravings and illustrations, maps, even menus from restaurants dating back a century. I will have to refer to this collection when looking for illustrations in the future, there is a treasure trove of material here.
Most of the interesting images I found were stereoscopic pairs. Stereoscopic pairs were incredibly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. While many might be familiar with the View-Master style stereo viewers of the 1950’s and 1970’s, the original version of this used a side-by-side print in place of a transparency.
