How to view a solar eclipse

1. Never view the sun with the naked eye or with any optical device, such as binoculars or a telescope!

2. Pinhole projector

There are safe ways to view the sun. The simplest requires only a long box (at least 6 feet long), a piece of aluminum foil, a pin, and a sheet of white paper.

The length of the box is important. The longer the box, the bigger the pinhole image. To find the size of the image, multiply the length of the box by the number 0.00873. For a box that is 1 meter long, the image will be 0.00873 meters (or 8.77 mm) in diameter. If your box is 5 feet (60 inches) long, your solar image will be 60 x 0.00873 = 0.52 inches in diameter. If you want to round things off, the size of the image is about 1/100th the length of the box.

(1) Find or make a long box or tube.

If you can't find a long box or tube, you can  tape together two or more boxes to make a  longer one. We found that taping together two  triangular UPS shipping tubes works well. Cut  out the cardboard at the ends of the tube and  tape them together with duct tape in the middle.