Safety and Health

Eyes, heat, water and crowds

Your eyes

The one rule that matters

You may look at the sun with the naked eye only during totality, and only if you are inside the path of totality. At every other moment, including at 99.99% coverage, you need certified eye protection. Damage to the retina is painless and can be permanent.

Eclipse glasses

  • They must be certified to ISO 12312-2. The marking should be printed on the glasses themselves.
  • Buy from a reputable astronomy retailer or an established manufacturer. Counterfeits appear in large numbers before every eclipse and they look identical.
  • Inspect them before use. If there is any scratch, pinhole or tear in the filter, throw them away.
  • Through proper eclipse glasses you should see essentially nothing except the sun itself. If you can see room lights or a landscape through them, they are not safe.
  • Put them on before you look up and take them off only after you look away.
  • Buy spares. They are cheap and they get lost, sat on and borrowed.

What does not work

Sunglasses, several pairs of sunglasses, smoked glass, exposed photographic film, CDs, mylar food packaging, polarising filters and neutral density camera filters are all unsafe. Welding glass is only acceptable at shade 14 or darker, and most welding masks are not.

Cameras, binoculars and telescopes

These concentrate sunlight and will destroy your eye through eclipse glasses in an instant. Any optical instrument needs a proper solar filter fitted over the front aperture, never at the eyepiece. Phone cameras are safe for the phone, though pointing a phone at the sun for two hours can damage the sensor.

When it is safe to look

Inside the path only, and only between second and third contact. The cue is the diamond ring: when the last bright bead of sunlight disappears and the corona springs out, the glasses come off. When the first bead reappears on the other side, they go straight back on. In Spain that window is between two and five minutes depending on where you are; in Egypt it is around six.

Heat

For this eclipse, heat is a more likely cause of a ruined day than anything else, and in Egypt it is a genuine medical risk.

  • Spain and Morocco: 30 to 38 degrees, eclipse mid morning. Manageable with shade and water.
  • Inland Algeria and Tunisia: above 35 degrees by mid morning, over 40 in the afternoon.
  • Upper Egypt: 40 to 45 degrees, with the eclipse at 13:05 and the sun almost overhead. This is the hardest combination on the path.

Practical measures: carry two litres of water per person minimum in Spain and considerably more in Egypt; take shade with you rather than assuming you will find it; wear a wide brimmed hat and light long sleeves; use high factor sunscreen and reapply; eat something salty. Know the signs of heat exhaustion, which are headache, nausea, dizziness and cool clammy skin, and treat them by getting into shade and rehydrating immediately.

One quirk worth knowing: during totality the temperature drops noticeably, often by several degrees, and then climbs straight back. It is a pleasant few minutes and not a reason to relax about the two hours either side.

Crowds and logistics

  • Arrive early and expect to stay late. Everyone leaves at once. Bring food, water and patience.
  • Phone networks will be saturated at popular viewing sites. Agree a meeting point with your group in advance rather than relying on calling each other.
  • Download maps offline before the day.
  • Toilets are the most underestimated problem at rural viewing sites. Plan for it.
  • Do not stop on motorway hard shoulders to watch. It is illegal, it is dangerous and it will be policed.
  • Cash. Card networks can struggle when tens of thousands of people converge on a small town.

Children

Children can watch an eclipse perfectly safely with adult supervision, and it is a good thing to show them. Use properly sized glasses, check that they are actually being worn correctly rather than pushed up on the forehead, and put one adult in charge of the moment the glasses come off and go back on. If a child will not keep glasses on, use indirect projection instead: a pinhole in a card, a colander, or the gaps between the leaves of a tree all project crescent images of the sun onto the ground.

Health and insurance abroad

  • In Spain, the European Health Insurance Card covers EU citizens. UK visitors should carry a GHIC. Everyone should still have travel insurance.
  • In Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Egypt, take comprehensive travel insurance including medical evacuation, and check that it covers travel to the specific regions you plan to visit.
  • Check your government’s current travel advice for each country before booking, particularly for Algeria and for border areas.
  • Take routine precautions with food and water in North Africa. Bottled water, and caution with ice and uncooked food.
  • Bring any prescription medication in sufficient quantity with its prescription, and check that it is legal in your destination.

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