Before you reach for your cell phone to snap a pic of the sky as the moon slips over the sun, be sure you have a solar camera filter. The concentrated light through the lens will fry your camera, ruin your phone, damage your eyes or all of the above.
• Astronomer Suzie Dills recommends a smartphone camera shade kit, which is also necessary when viewing the eclipse through a telescope.
• You can take off the solar glasses only when the eclipse has entered totality, which will last nearly four minutes. You can view the sun’s corona — the ring of light that appears in the sky. Then, put the glasses back on to view the rest of the eclipse, Dills says.
• Be sure your solar glasses are certified, indicated by the code ISO 12312-2 or ISO 12312-2:2015, to American Astronomical Society standards (a list of reputable vendors is on the Society’s website).
