{"id":783,"date":"2015-03-20T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-03-20T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/?p=783"},"modified":"2020-01-03T01:16:14","modified_gmt":"2020-01-03T01:16:14","slug":"solar-eclipse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/2015\/03\/20\/solar-eclipse\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar Eclipse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I didn’t know about the solar eclipse until a couple of days ago and I hadn’t left myself enough time to get some goggles. All of the local shops had sold out. Solar eclipses are rare and being able to see a solar eclipse properly from your little spot on our planet, even rarer. So, I decided I’m not going to miss out. The two options were to borrow a welding mask from someone at work or make myself some goggles. I did the latter because I didn’t want to look a dickhead stood on top of a hill wearing a helmet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I got a pair of 3D cinema glasses from my collection of 3D cinema glasses (that I am reluctant to bin, just in case 3D cinema has yet another revival in a decade). I popped out the lenses. I then cut out out some squares of mylar sheeting (from a ‘space blanket’) and stuck them in layers over the glasses. Okay, I admit, it’s probably not very scientific but I basically got my really bright site light (the thing you see on the floor in construction sites) and sat in close to me and kept adding layers until I could barely see it anymore. I took packed some spare mylar in case my layers weren’t enough and a knife to remove some if there was too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’d to view the eclipse from Newlands Corner<\/a> – well it was conveniently between work sites and I could just stop off briefly. I was there on time, ready to go. There were lots of other people there as well, all waiting. The whole sky was clouded over. Apart from a brief moment of darkness, which didn’t really feel eerie, I didn’t see anything. Waste of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m going to buy some goggles ready for the next big one in the UK, which is only 11 years away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I didn’t know about the solar eclipse until a couple of days ago and I hadn’t left myself enough time to get some goggles. All of the local shops had sold out. Solar eclipses are rare and being able to see a solar eclipse properly from your little spot on our planet, even rarer. So, I decided I’m not going to miss out. The two options were to borrow a welding mask from someone at work or make myself some goggles. I did the latter because I didn’t want to look a dickhead stood on top of a hill wearing a helmet. I got a pair of 3D cinema glasses from my collection of 3D cinema glasses (that I am reluctant to bin, just in case 3D cinema has yet another revival in a decade). I popped out the lenses. I then cut out out some squares of mylar sheeting (from a ‘space blanket’) and stuck them in layers over the glasses. Okay, I admit, it’s probably not very scientific but I basically got my really bright site light (the thing you see on the floor in construction sites) and sat in close to me and kept adding layers until[…]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":784,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[20],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stem","tag-astronomy"],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/solareclipseglasses.jpg?fit=800%2C793&ssl=1","author_info":{"display_name":"james","author_link":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/author\/james\/"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/solareclipseglasses.jpg?fit=800%2C793&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p89zH1-cD","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":785,"href":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783\/revisions\/785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jameshatton.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}