Where to Buy Eclipse Glasses for the 2024 Solar Eclipse in Indiana
If you haven’t purchased or picked up a pair of solar glasses yet, now is the time. You don’t want to be left in the dark when a rare total solar eclipse streaks across the Hoosier state on April 8, 2024. The Indiana Department of Natural Resources will have solar eclipse glasses for sale online until March 15 and at state parks and its other managed properties.
Indiana has 24 state parks and seven satellite locations, along with seven state park inns, many of which will be in the path of the totality of the eclipse. For a list of locations, visit DNR’s website.
Solar eclipse glasses can be purchased online at the Indiana State Parks website: stores.innsgifts.com while supplies last until Friday, March 15. After that, they’ll be available in person at the park. You can buy a set of four for $10. Shipping and handling costs $1.50.
Looking directly at the sun without proper eye protection can permanently harm your vision or cause blindness. When buying solar glasses, look for this designation: ISO 12312-2. That means the glasses have met the international standard for safely observing the eclipse.
It’s never safe to look directly at the sun without specialized eye protection made for solar viewing. To protect your vision, be sure you’re using safe solar viewers, which are thousands of times darker than regular sunglasses and comply with international safety standards.
Scientists at NASA advise people watching an eclipse take the following precautions:
– Always use solar viewers, or “eclipse glasses” to watch a solar eclipse outside the “moment of totality,” when the moon completely obscures the Sun.
– Inspect your eclipse glasses or handheld viewer for scratches. If damaged, discard them.
– Always supervise children using solar viewers.
– DO NOT look at the Sun through a camera lens, telescope, binoculars, or any other device while wearing eclipse glasses. The concentrated solar rays will burn through the filter and can cause serious eye injury.
– You can view the eclipse directly without proper eye protection only when the Moon completely obscures the Sun’s rays. As soon as you see even a little bit of the sun, immediately put your eclipse glasses back on.
Astronomers say the next total eclipse seen from the contiguous United States won’t happen again until August 2044. And the last time a total solar eclipse passed over Indianapolis was more than 800 years ago in 1205 when Genghis Khan was consolidating his power in China.
“That 1205 total eclipse path only covered the southwest side of the city,” said Butler University Physics & Astronomy professor Brian Murphy. “For the northeast side of the city, the last total eclipse was in 831.”
Murphy, who also serves as director for the Holcomb Observatory & Planetarium, said it’s not that total solar eclipses are rare — they occur every year or two somewhere on the Earth’s surface — it’s that width of the totality is relatively small at around 100 miles, and so they pass a given location only once every 400 years or so.
Don’t miss out on this rare opportunity to witness a total solar eclipse in Indiana. Make sure to purchase your eclipse glasses from trusted sources and follow safety guidelines to protect your eyes during this extraordinary celestial event.