Check out our eclipse26 pack below made by our staff at DIAS Dunsink Observatory in collaboration with ESERO Ireland!
You should never look directly at the Sun as this will cause serious damage to your eyes, but one of the safest and easiest ways to view the solar eclipse will be with a pinhole projector and this can be made easily with some household items! Always be vigilant, never look directly at the sun! But do take lots of photos of your projected images and send them on to us through social media.
TimeAndDate (http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/make-pinhole-projector.html) is a great website showing how to make a pinhole projector for viewing the eclipse. Also read below for a brief outline on how to do so. If you have any questions or have any queries into how to make a pinhole projector or information about the eclipse please get into contact with us!
If you want to see the Sun as it is right now check out SolarMonitor.org run by our researchers at DIAS Dunsink Observatory!
Basic Pinhole Projector
You will need:
- Two sheets of white stiff paper (paper plates work well!)
- A thumb tack or needle
What to do:
- Poke a pin hole in the centre of one sheet of the stiff white paper, making sure that the hole is round and smooth
- Hold this piece of paper (the one with the pinhole) in front of the sun, and use the seconds piece of paper as a screen. You should be able to see an image of the sun on the second sheet of paper. To make the image larger, move the screen farther away from the pinhole sheet.
Things to note:
- Do not look directly at the sun!
- The image should look something like in this image
Projector using binoculars/telescope
You will need:
- Binoculars/telescope and tripod A sheet of white stiff paper
- A piece of cardboard
- Duct tape
What to do:
- Place telescope/binoculars on the tripod
- Put holes in the piece of cardboard that fit the lenses of the telescope or binoculars
- Tape the cardboard in front of the telescope/binoculars in a way that the lenses stick out
- Make sure that there isn’t any spaces between cardboard and lenses (use tape to fix if there are spaces)
- Direct the telescope/binoculars towards Sun and place the piece of white paper a distance from the eyepiece of telescope/binoculars You might need to move to get the best position of tripod to see the projected image clearly
Lesson plan: Model your own eclipse!
A solar eclipse is something of a difficult concept to get your head around so why not build a Sun-Earth-Moon system to understand why and how eclipses happen, and look into ideas such as phases of the moon! A great lesson plan on how to do this in the classroom is outlined here: http://www.scienceinschool.org/2012/issue23/eclipses
Learn more about the Sun with ESA!
The European Space Agency (ESA) have compiled excellent resources and activities for the eclipse for 6-18 year olds. Link to the resources is available here.
They also have more general information about the Sun here. https://www.esa.int/Science_Exploration/Space_Science/European_solar_eclipses
CAUTION: Do not look directly at the Sun during the eclipse or otherwise. Doing so can cause permanent damage to your eyes.