First, I don't base my concerns on any false story about Galileo. I thought Galileo used a technique that projected the image of the sun on a piece of paper, from which he could draw. That's a strange way to start the discussion, setting up the Galileo straw man. The part that is most important is where he says, "Normal people just don't get eye damage from looking at the Sun; the average person looks away when the Sun is “too bright to look at,” and exposure for a few seconds does not seem to be sufficient to damage most eyes — though some people may be unusually susceptible to this kind of injury" This is what I tried to say: don't stare at the sun. What about our long-held concerns and often-repeated warnings does he contradict? Nothing. With permanent eye damage possible, it's just stupid to take a risk. -- Joe ________________________________ From: Patrick Wiggins <paw@wirelessbeehive.com> To: Utah Astronomy <utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, August 15, 2013 9:25 PM Subject: Re: [Utah-astronomy] Patch Springs fire aerial shot On 15 Aug 2013, at 14:34, Joe Bauman wrote:
Well, don't stare at the sun, regardless. Even when the smoke is dense enough to turn it deep red, I suspect it still can inflict eye damage. And that includes looking through a viewfinder. (And I suspect it could damage a camera with an electronic viewfinder.) -- Joe
Like Joe and Chuck and everyone else here who have commented, I too am always careful to stress the importance of safety when observing our home star. However, a while about I came across the following that pretty well refutes everything I've ever heard on the subject. I'm still going to continue to stress safety but I'd like to hear some thoughts from the folks here about this: Galileo, solar observing, and eye safety http://mintaka.sdsu.edu/GF/vision/Galileo.html The author notes he is an astronomer and not an ophthalmologist but a couple of the people he sites do have MDs and PhDs appropriate to the discussion. ??? patrick _______________________________________________ Utah-Astronomy mailing list http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Send messages to the list to Utah-Astronomy@mailman.xmission.com The Utah-Astronomy mailing list is not affiliated with any astronomy club. To unsubscribe go to: http://mailman.xmission.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/utah-astronomy Then enter your email address in the space provided and click on "Unsubscribe or edit options".