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A user's guide to two minutes of totality

Nature volume 399, pages 651–652 (1999)Cite this article

A Correction to this article was published on 12 August 1999

Total Eclipses: Science, Observations, Myths and Legends

  • Pierre Guillermier &
  • Serge Koutchmy
Springer/Praxis: 1999. 239pp £19, $29.95)

The importance of these two minutes, and the fact that one can, and should, look at the corona during this time without any filters, is unfortunately often hidden by the marketing blitz for eye-protection filters. These filters are fine in their place, but they are only for taking occasional glances at the partial phases. Indeed, putting them into eyeglass form, instead of rectangular sheets, may encourage people to use them for too long. Further, since the partial phases are not fundamentally interesting to look at, one can do almost as well by looking at the pinhole images of the crescent Sun that will be projected beneath trees and bushes.

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Author notes

  1. Jay M. Chair Pasachoff: of the Working Group on Eclipses of the solar commissions of the International Astronomical Union.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Astronomy, Williams College, 3 Lab Campus Drive, Williamstown, 01267, Massachusetts, USA

    Jay M. Pasachoff

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  1. Jay M. Pasachoff
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Pasachoff, J. A user's guide to two minutes of totality. Nature 399, 651–652 (1999). https://doi.org/10.1038/21359

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