Solar Eclipse 2017: Why Protective Glasses Are So Important

ATLANTA, GA -- Store shelves are empty, and Amazon and eBay are charging insane prices for last-minute glasses to view Monday's solar eclipse. You may feel that you'll just take a look at this once-in-a-lifetime celestial event with the naked eye, but you'd better think twice.

Viewing a solar eclipse without protective eyewear can damage the retina, permanently in many cases. There are some very real reasons why we don't want to chance looking at an eclipse without special glasses. (SIGN UP: For more information on this and other neighborhood stories, subscribe to Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts. Or if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)

Metro Atlanta Eclipse Guide 2017: Where to watch, how to see totality

Schools in metro Atlanta are making plans to keep their pupils on campus to view the phenomenon, which is regarded as one of the most spectacular natural event to be witnessed from Earth.

In North Georgia. the town of Helen is expecting more than 100,000 people where totality -- 100 percent blackness -- will be achieved sometime in the afternoon. The path of totality, while it spans coast to coast is only encompasses a 70-mile swatch from Oregon to South Carolina.

A solar eclipse occurs when the moon's shadow crosses the Earth's surface, temporarily obscuring it. During totality, it will be safe -- for a few minutes -- to take off your spectacles and enjoy the moon directly in front of the sun with the star's corona glowing around it, but then it will be time to put your glasses back on.

How to make your own eclipse viewer (VIDEO)

Having the right kind of eyewear is extremely important. News stories in recent days have been retelling accounts of people who have not worn glasses during the event -- and paid for it. In 1962, Lou Tomososki of Oregon looked at an eclipse without special eyewear as a teenager. “You know how the news people blur a license plate out,” he recently told NBC News. “That’s what I have on the right eye, about the size of a pea. I can’t see around that.”

Sun-induced retina damage, either the phenomenom called "photochemical toxicity" or “direct thermal injury,” are possible when looking at an eclipse without the proper lens. "When you look directly at the sun, the intensity of the light and the focus of the light is so great on the retina that it can cook it," said Dr. Christopher Quinn, president of the American Optometric Association, told CNN. "If the exposure is great enough, that can and will lead to permanent reduction in vision and even blindness."

Taken with the proper precautions, Monday's event will be an awesome experience. If by chance you miss this one, the next annular solar eclipse visible in the continental United States will be on October 14, 2023 and on April 8, 2024, according to NASA.

Image via Pixabay