By Christopher Lessler
A 97 percent solar eclipse is coming to Pittsburgh on Monday, April 8. It starts at 2 p.m. and ends at 4:30 p.m. Maximum eclipse occurs at 3:17 p.m., at which point the moon will cover 97 percent of the sun in Pittsburgh. The sky will noticeably dim but not become dark. However, just two hours north in Erie (the largest Pennsylvania city in the path of totality), there will be a total solar eclipse for three minutes and 42 seconds, during which the moon will cover the entire sun. This will be the only total solar eclipse of the 21st century to pass over parts of Mexico, the United States, and Canada.
A partial solar eclipse will be visible everywhere in the contiguous United States, but only a thin line called the path of totality will see the total solar eclipse. Cities within the path of totality include Mazatlán, Dallas, Cleveland, Erie, and Montreal. It is estimated that between 56,000 and 200,000 visitors will visit Pennsylvania, the vast majority of them heading to Erie.
A solar eclipse occurs when the moon moves directly between the Sun and Earth, blocking the sun. A total solar eclipse is when the moon blocks the entire sun, and a partial solar eclipse is when the moon blocks a part of the sun. An annular solar eclipse, when the moon covers the center of the sun but leaves a ring of sunlight around it, is also possible. This occurs only when the moon is far enough from Earth that it does not block the entire sun. On average, a total solar eclipse occurs somewhere on Earth about every 18 months, but a total solar eclipse occurs in the same location only about every 300 or 400 years.
The organization Prevent Blindness says never to look directly at the sun when a solar eclipse occurs, except with caution during a total eclipse, when the sun is completely covered (which will not occur in Pittsburgh during the upcoming eclipse). Otherwise, direct exposure to the sun may damage or destroy cells in the eye’s retina, which transmit the light that enters the eye to the brain. This damage, while painless, could be either temporary or permanent, and may take a few hours or days to materialize. To prevent eye damage, Prevent Blindness recommends wearing solar eclipse glasses with the ISO 12312-2 standard and verifying the lenses are not torn or scratched, or alternatively creating a pinhole projector to project the sun through a pinhole onto some other surface. Using a smartphone camera, camera viewfinder, or filters not specifically designed and certified for solar eclipse viewing is dangerous.
Here in Pittsburgh, many schools are going remote, having early releases, or closing completely on the day of the eclipse. The Pine-Richland School District, which is closing schools on April 8, wrote in a letter to parents about the eclipse that “the potential is significant for students to be tempted to view it without proper safety precautions while exiting the school building or while getting off of the school bus.”
The Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh will also be hosting an Eclipse Extravaganza, included with the center’s general admission ticket. This will feature the center’s solar exhibition gear, including a solar telescope. The center will also display NASA footage on the Buhl Planetarium dome and will provide complementary 3D-printed pinhole projectors to attendees. Eclipse programming runs most of the day.
It’s not every day that Pittsburgh experiences a solar eclipse, let alone a total solar eclipse or even a 97 percent eclipse, like what we’ll see on April 8. The previous total solar eclipse visible over the contiguous United States was in 2017, and the next will not occur until 2044. So if you want to see a near-total eclipse or, if you travel north, a total eclipse, now’s your shot.
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