Milestones
Even at 70 percent, eclipse is worth a (protected) look
You won’t be able to get the full effect of next week’s total eclipse from Pawleys Island, but you will be more likely to get a parking space.
That will be a change from the 2017 eclipse that brought thousands of visitors to Georgetown County. And it will have to do until the next total eclipse crosses the U.S. in 20 years.
Eclipses aren’t actually rare.
“You generally get two eclipses per year and because the planet is 70 percent water most of them happen over the water,” said Ian Hewitt, associate professor of astronomy and computer science at Coastal Carolina University.
But a total eclipse won’t cross the contiguous United States again until August 2045.
What is being called the Great American Eclipse will appear along the South Carolina coast as a partial eclipse. The 115-mile-wide path of totality will cross the U.S. from the Southwest and exit through Canada.
The alignment in 2017 had the path of totality cross from the Pacific Northwest to the East Coast at McClellanville. Viewers packed Georgetown and Pawleys Island, which was at the northern edge of the path of totality.
“The alignment is not quite right for the sun to be totally blocked out,” Hewitt said of this year’s eclipse. “It’s going to be about 70 percent covered.”
It will still be eye-catching, as the moon passes between the earth and sun and an amber, crescent-shaped sun illuminates the sky, he said.
“It starts getting darker and the temperature starts cooling off, and it starts throwing off a lot of the wildlife,” Hewitt said. “It’s a very strange experience because when you go outside even during this partial eclipse that we’re going to have the light looks wrong. That’s the only way to describe it,
It will also cause eye damage if looked at without proper protection.
The eclipse will begin just before 2 p.m. and reach its peak at 3:12 p.m., coinciding with school dismissal. The Georgetown County School District told parents last month that students will be getting instruction Monday about safe viewing.
Hewitt said the eclipse should only be viewed through ISO certified eclipse glasses. The approved standard is ISO 12312-2.
“They’re inexpensive and they let you look directly into the sun,” he said.
For viewers hoping to get a closer look, solar filters should be fitted onto the front of telescopes, binoculars and cameras.
“It’s a significant experience because it somehow affects us on a primal basis inside our brain. It’s almost like an emotional response that triggers something deep inside us,” Hewitt said.
