Chasing eclipse — and shady profits
Bogus viewing glasses can cause permanent eye damage
“You can take a magnifying glass on a sunny day and burn a hole in a leaf. You’re doing the same thing to your retina if you look at the sun.” Russell Van Gelder, American Academy of Ophthalmology
Renting out motel rooms in Oregon for $1,000 a night that normally go for $71 isn’t the only way some folks are turning a buck on Monday morning’s solar eclipse. There’s also the shady world of counterfeit eclipse shades.
People with souls darker than the shadow of the moon have shamelessly been selling lowquality eclipse-viewing glasses that could damage the eyes of anyone who uses a pair to take in the celestial spectacle.
An eclipse of the sun isn’t particularly rare, and neither are the stern warnings not to look at it without proper protection. What’s
new is the demand for eclipse safety glasses that has apparently spawned a market in fakes.
Amazon has issued a recall of many of the solar eclipse viewing glasses sold by vendors over its site. The online retailer won’t say how many pairs it’s recalling or how widespread the problem might be.
The company has offered refunds to customers. “Amazon has not received confirmation from the supplier of your order that they sourced the item from a recommended manufacturer,” the company wrote in an email. “We recommend that you DO NOT use this product to view the sun or the eclipse.”
Amazon did not return requests seeking comment.
Hindsight is 20/20, and that’s also the kind of vision you won’t have, ophthalmologists say, if you view the eclipse through the fake filters.
Amazon is not the only vendor suspected of selling iffy eyeware.
Buyers have been told that eclipse glasses were safe if there was an ISO (International Organization for Standardization) number printed on them. But then counterfeiters began printing the ISO number onto unsafe glasses sold online — which means the counterfeiters counterfeited the number designed to thwart counterfeiters.
“It is no longer sufficient to look for the ISO logo on eclipse glasses and filters,” said Susanne Medeiros of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Dark sunglasses, even very dark ones, even two pairs of very dark sunglasses worn over one another — are not good enough either, experts said. The same goes for any number of homemade eclipse-viewing materials, according to the American Astronomical Society. “Filters, smoked glass, photographic or X-ray film, space blankets, potato chip bags, DVDs, and any other materials you may have heard about for solar viewing are not safe,” the society said in a statement.
Although such materials might seem to be dark enough, the society said, they aren’t.
“While you’re enjoying a ‘comfortable’ view of the ‘dim’ sun, solar infrared radiation could be cooking your retina,” the society said. “And you wouldn't know till later, because your retinas don't have pain receptors. Only after the eclipse, when you notice blind spots or other vision problems, would you realize you’d made a catastrophic mistake.”
Seventy-one years ago, a 9-year-old San Francisco boy looked at a solar eclipse through a smoked piece of glass. He lost almost all the vision in the eye he used to view the solar blackout, according to ophthalmologist Russell Van Gelder, of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and it never came back. That patient, who requested anonymity, is not alone. The condition is called solar retinopathy, and there’s absolutely nothing an eye doctor can do for it, Van Gelder said.
“The sun puts out an enormous amount of energy,” Van Gelder said. “That’s why you can take a magnifying glass on a sunny day and burn a hole in a leaf. You’re doing the same thing to your retina if you look at the sun — you’re literally burning a hole in it.”
Selling fake eclipse glasses is as low as it gets, Van Gelder said, something like selling fake medicine.
“There are people out there looking to make a quick buck,” he said. “It’s really a terrible thing.”
Glasses now being sold on Amazon are said to be safe. But it’s unlikely a pair bought now would arrive in time for the big event. The eclipse is scheduled to take place in San Francisco on Monday from 9:01 a.m. to 11:37 a.m., one performance only. San Francisco will see a partial eclipse, in which about threefourths of the sun will be in shadow. The closest place to see a total eclipse is central Oregon, land of the $1,000 motel rooms.
And as the hour draws near, the online price for the safety glasses is creeping sky high as well. Some eclipse glasses that used to go for a buck or two are selling for $20, take it or leave it. Their frames are made of “card stock,” also known as paper. Many Amazon vendors say they are sold out of eclipse glasses at any price.
In San Francisco, the store at the Exploratorium science museum at Pier 15 received a fresh shipment of 1,500 safe eclipse viewing glasses this week. They sold out within days, at $2.75 a pair, and the store has no plans to order more.
“We apologize for the inconvenience,” the store said in an online announcement, but no shopkeeper wants to be stuck with eclipse glasses after an eclipse is over.
How can you tell if your eclipse glasses are safe? If you can see anything through them besides the sun, said Van Gelder, they aren’t.
“They should be like a blindfold,” he said.
It doesn’t take long to do irreversible damage, said Dr. David Hwang, an ophthalmology professor at UCSF. Solar retinopathy can occur from only a few seconds of viewing a partial solar eclipse.
Eye doctors “could have quite a number of cases” after Monday from eclipse watchers who fail to take the warnings seriously, he said.
“If you’re not sure about your eclipse glasses, it would be better not to take a chance,” he said. “The damage is real, and there’s nothing you can do afterwards.”
There’s no real way to know whether a pair of eclipse glasses is safe without testing them with a piece of lab equipment known as a spectrophotometer, which most people don’t have lying around the house.
Also safe for viewing an eclipse are No. 14 welding glasses. But not all welding glasses are No. 14 welding glasses, and most people don’t weld.
As for eclipse profiteering, it seems that everybody’s getting into the act — even the post office.
The U.S. Postal Service is selling a heat-sensitive eclipse “forever” 49-cent postage stamp which does something that no other U.S. postage stamp has done: If you put your finger on the picture of the darkened sun on the front of the stamp, the image turns into a picture of the full moon.
The postal service figures that many collectors will keep the stamps as collector’s items instead of using them for postage, enabling the postal service to pocket as profit almost all of the 49 cents.
With Monday’s eclipse having been on the calendar for centuries, authorities have had time to prepare. The partially darkened sun will mean that solar energy collectors will absorb less energy. Matt Nauman, a spokesman for the Pacific Gas and Electric Co., said the utility figures it will lose 2,600 megawatts in California, enough to power 650,000 homes, but that other energy sources such as hydroelectric will kick in to make up the difference.
Meanwhile, millions of people are just as ready for the sun to quit its fling with show business and get back to normal.
A sunset, say eclipse killjoys, is more beautiful than a solar eclipse, and one of them is scheduled every evening. No special glasses required.