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Will you be watching the August 21 eclipse with your coworkers, as this group did in 1921? Here are a few tips from the experts for how to get the most out of your viewing experience.
Watching an eclipse without the aid of special glasses will damage your vision. This woman watched the April 1921 eclipse with a mask you might be seeing in your nightmares.
A crowd at Stonyhurst College gathers to watch a total solar eclipse. “The narrow belt of totality, only about 28 miles wide, swept across England in a line to include parts of North Wales, Lancashire, and Yorkshire,” one writer noted. “Thousands upon thousands of spectators were gathered at various centers in the totality, from one side of England to the other, only to be greeted on the great day with a drenching and hopeless dawn of impenetrable clouds.”
These nurses took a break from work to look skyward at the total eclipse.
The fans taking in a match between West Ham United and Aston Villa at Upton Park in London also had the opportunity to see an eclipse.
This group stopped in the streets of Hornsey, London to take in the eclipse.
Though some lucky eclipse chasers got a total solar eclipse in June 1954, England, where these women were watching, got just a partial eclipse. The last total eclipse over England had taken place in 1927; there wouldn’t be another until 1999.
"As the eclipse started, I remember seeing the dark shadow on the Sun starting to become larger," one eyewitness to the eclipse, who was 13 at the time, recalled. "The clouds prevented us [from] seeing the eclipse, but I do recall the atmosphere becoming very dark and still, and noticed that the birds had stopped singing." You can read other accounts of the eclipse here.
These students looked at a reflection of the eclipse in a bucket of water, but even that can damage your eyes. NASA has guidelines for safely viewing the eclipse here.