The first day of school is combining with a solar eclipse, adding to the excitement in our area. Most schools are featuring solar eclipse viewing activities for Monday’s event. But Dr. James Lohrberg, an Optometrist at Chittick Family Eye Care in Danville, is cautioning teachers to make sure their students do not look directly at the sun.
‘’Supervision will really be important so that the kids realize that those glasses stay on, if they do have the glasses available for them. And that any observation of the sun itself is done with protection. How you do that with lots of little kids, I’m not sure – but that’s why we have teachers,’’ added Dr. Lohrberg.
And Dr. Lohrberg adds classes and others should enjoy themselves, but take precautions.
‘’I think if they have a verified quality pair of eclipse glasses I think that they can be safely used. The key there is that they have to have a certain specified ISO number on them. It’s 12312-2. And it just identifies those glasses as being safe to use for this purpose.’’
Dr. Lohrberg explained how the solar eclipse can damage your eyesight.
‘’The sun, of course, we’re all familiar with the idea of ultra-violet light. And we protect our skin from that – we protect our eyes from that with ultra-violet protective sunglasses. But this is a little different,’’ said Dr. Lohrberg. ‘’When you have direct exposure to the sun you’re also receiving exposure to infra-red radiation. And some of it is visible, and some of it is invisible. And it’s that infra-red radiation that is the thing that can be harmful to the retina inside the eye.’’
And Dr. Lohrberg added that damage may not be detected for years.
