Eclipse Watch 2016 is intended to help people watch the eclipse with others, in groups - because it's fun.
If you have a few eclipse-viewers to share, then please submit your site on the map above.
A "site" can be:
at your workplace, for your colleagues;
at your business, for your customers;
at your university, for your students;
in the street, for anyone.
Eclipse viewing in the street, Braamfontein 2006.
All you need is:
a good spot - where there will be people on the morning of Thursday 1 Sep, and preferably with a nice tree where you'll see really cool pinhole-projections
on the ground; if there are no trees, a potplant with roundish leaves on a stool will do;
permission to do eclipse-viewing at the site if it's on private property (e.g. at a mall);
a handful of eclipse viewers. You can get viewers from:
Don't take a telescope or binoculars to your site, unless you have a very experienced person with you, who can make certain the device is either only used for
projection, and that people are physically prevented from looking through the eyepiece (which will blind them), or that the device is properly filtered.
Take a sheet of white paper to demonstrate pinhole-projection by trees.
Small holes, of any shape, show an image of the Sun.
A fizzpop (Moon) held 2m from a tennis ball (Earth) demonstrates a solar eclipse nicely.
Some typical questions at an eclipse-viewing site:
What's happening?
The Moon is coming between us and the Sun - it's blocking the Sun.
It's perfectly safe to photograph the projected Sun.
If you want to point your phone-camera at the Sun, cover the camera lens with an eclipse viewer, and make sure you look at the phone screen,
not at the Sun.
Turn off the flash.
How long will it last?
It depends where you are - get details for your town here.
Is anyone else seeing this, or is it just us in [Johannesburg / Dar es Salaam / whatever town you're in]?
Most of Africa (except the very far north) is seeing it, but countries closer to the centre-line see
more than we do, and countries further from the centre-line see less.
Most of Africa will see at least a partial solar eclipse late afternoon on Sunday
26 February next year (2017). For most of us, the Sun will still be in eclipse while it is setting.
The Moon is quite far from us - most months, as it passes between us and the Sun at New Moon,
its shadow misses us. When the Sun, Moon and Earth are lined up, which can only happen twice a year, we can have an eclipse.
Can I buy this viewer? I want to show them at work.
Be prepared for this - do you have enough to spare? What price will you sell them?