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 Even as makers of certified, safety-tested solar eye ware rushed to
meet surging demand before the Aug. 21 eclipse, they have joined
astronomers and optometrists in warning of defective knockoffs
flooding the U.S. market.
"It's a bunch of unscrupulous people cashing in on the eclipse and
putting public safety at risk," said Richard Fienberg, press officer
for the American Astronomical Society (AAS).
Staring at the sun without proper filtration, even when it is
partially obscured by the moon during an eclipse, can damage or
destroy photo-receptor cells of the eye's retina, leaving blind
spots in a person's field of vision, experts said.
Special eyeglasses made with proper solar filters allow viewers to
safely gaze at the sun any time for unlimited duration, the AAS
said.
Although the advent of solar-safe sunglasses dates back more than
three decades, they have never been so widely available to the
public as for the 2017 event, which Fienberg said may rank as the
most watched total solar eclipse in human history.
That is largely because this year's spectacle will be the first in
99 years to span the entire continental United States - the world's
third most populous nation - across a 70-mile-wide (113-km) path
over 14 states, from the Pacific coast of Oregon to the Atlantic
shore of South Carolina.
It will also be the first total solar eclipse visible from any of
the Lower 48 states since 1979.
SHADY DISTRIBUTORS
As a measure of excitement surrounding the event, a leading supplier
of solar lenses, Arizona-based Thousand Oaks Optical, has sold
enough of its filters this year alone to produce roughly 100 million
pairs of glasses, company owner Pat Steele-Gaishin told Reuters.
While no data exists for how many made-for-eclipse eyeglasses are in
circulation overall, shady distributors of purportedly solar-safe
shades abound on the Internet, Fienberg said.
The lenses of some obvious fakes allow the penetration of light from
such relatively faint sources as fluorescent lamps, while the only
thing one should see through authentic solar-safe filters when
looking at objects fainter than the sun is pitch blackness.
Other bogus glasses have come stamped with forged logos of reputable
manufacturers or with phony safety labels.
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Peru State College in Nebraska, which lies in the path of the
eclipse, ordered 7,500 pairs for students but discovered the
shipment from a Chinese distributor was defective and came with
safety certificates for ordinary sunglasses.
Peru marketing director Jason Hogue said the college has since
reordered from a legitimate supplier.
The AAS and NASA have posted a list of reputable solar filter
brands, retail distributors and online dealers. (https://eclipse.aas.org/resources/solar-filters)
Prices range from as little as 99 cents for a pair of paper-frame
glasses to $20 or $30 for a more stylish plastic set.
While a last-minute rush has left many dealers out of stock two
weeks before the big day, the good news is that U.S. astronomy buffs
have to wait only seven more years for the next total solar eclipse
over North America, in April 2024.
Made from an extremely opaque black polymer film containing fine
carbon powder, true solar-safe lenses are designed to screen out
250,000 times more visible light than would otherwise reach the
naked eye, said B. Ralph Chou, a Canadian optometrist who led
development of global standards for solar optics.
Any filter less opaque than that may cause severe eye damage that
would not become evident until hours later, Chou warned.
The legitimate glasses, which offer no views outside the eclipse,
carry their own hazards, however.
"When you put the glasses on, you can look at the sun, but don't try
to walk around," Chou said.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Ben Klayman
and Lisa Shumaker)
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