Re: Welders Glass for viewing Solar Eclipse

"xray" <notreally@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:8lr42215lgt0h22ro0ntvdpvs89td6ob22@xxxxxxxxxx
On 23 Mar 2006 00:21:13 -0800, "Glenn" <glenn@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I can't comment on whether a #11 will be dark enough, but I'd strongly
encourage you to also add a piece of clear plastic, or wear sunglasses
with plastic lenses as well as they will kill any UV which the welding
lens (being glass) will not do as efficiently. Pretty well all forms of
plastic are very effective absorbers of UV.

Cheers
Glenn

Huh? If the filters are for any form of arc welding they have to be good
at stopping UV. You can get a sunburn on bare skin from TIG so there's
plenty of UV there.

If I remember the discussions here about auto-darkening helmets, even if
you forget to turn them on and get a quick flash from the arc, it won't
really hurt your eyes because the filter, even undarkened, will stop
most of the UV.

Now don't take this to say any old arc welding filter will be good for
looking at the sun. Just that any filter dark enough to look at the sun
should also block the UV.


Don't forget that most helmets have a plastic safety cover over the lens...

That said, I once had a Tasco telescope that came with a "sun filter" that
screwed into the eyepiece - about a #11, IIRC - for direct viewing of the
sun's corona.



.

Relevant Pages

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