To view the April 8 solar eclipse, you should have special glasses so you don't damage your eyesight. To take a good picture of the eclipse, you also need a filter.
Dante Centuori of the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta says the sun is so bright it can damage the sensors in a camera or phone.
“You really want to check with the make of your camera. Check with astronomy clubs to make sure you’ve got the right thing. The important thing is you want to have the filter on the front end of the camera. You don’t want to put the filter through the eyepiece.”
Centuori says that will protect your eyes, but not the sensor. He adds that just putting a pair of eclipse glasses over your camera lens won't really work.
“Even with a 99% covered sun in a partial eclipse, there is so much brightness coming from that little sliver, that you have to have protection. That’s why eclipse glasses are necessary for that,” he says. “[It's] the same way for a camera or an iPhone, you need to have some kind of a filter to protect the electronics.”
Related: Do's and don'ts for viewing the April 8 eclipse
Eclipse filters for digital and film cameras, and for phones can be found online and in some stores.
Centuori says if you're in the path of totality, you can take off the filters, and your eclipse glasses when the sun is completely covered.
“If you left your solar glasses on, you wouldn’t see the total eclipse. It’s that much dimmer.”
He recommends being in the moment, too.
“It’s only a couple of minutes and you might not get that chance again unless you travel. Try to spend as much time as you can looking at the eclipse,” he says. “You’d really kick yourself if you spent three minutes trying to fudge around with equipment and you’re not looking at it.”
The Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta is in the path of totality and will host a watch party. Centuori says there's about as much excitement there now as there was for the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.
