How to Safely View the Solar Eclipse Sunday

With a solar eclipse set to grace California's skies on Sunday, May 20, here's a helpful reminder from Space.com for safetly viewing the eclipse.  A fraction of a second of magnified, unfiltered sunlight will sear your eye’s retina irreparably.

The 2012 annular solar eclipse comes one day after Earth is expected to be pummeled by a solar flare's coronal mass ejection on May 19, 2012. During the eclipse, the moon and sun will exactly align, creating a "ring of fire" around the moon because of the sun's larger apparent size.

An annular solar eclipse is typically no match for a total solar eclipse, says Space.com It is really more like an embellished partial eclipse, with the beautiful solar corona not becoming visible and the sky never getting really dark. Nevertheless, an annular solar eclipse still ranks as one of the most remarkable of celestial sights for avid skywatchers.

Don't ever look directly at it! Not with your eyes, binoculars, and certainly not with a telescope unless you have proper optical filters. Whether there's a solar eclipse or not, direct sunlight harms eyesight. The safest and simplest technique to observe the eclipse is to make a pinhole camera.  Natalie Wolchover of Life's Little Mysteries gives you complete, easy-to-follow pinhole camera instructions in this video.

Here's Sunday's eclipse schedule:

• 5:24 p.m.: Eclipse begins
• 6:38 p.m.: Maximum eclipse
• 7:42 p.m.: Eclipse ends
• 7:52 p.m.: Sunset

• Make a pinhole projector
• Use binoculars to project the eclipse on a white card