SC State physics organization to host eclipse viewing event on Monday for students, employees

ORANGEBURG, S.C. – South Carolina State University’s Society of Physics Students (SPS) will host a viewing of the partial solar eclipse -- weather permitting -- for students, faculty and staff on the Student Center Plaza, Monday, April 8, from 2-4 p.m.

Dr. Donald Walter, SC State physics professor and academic program coordinator, expects the best viewing time to be from 2:30-3:30 p.m.  

The SPS will distribute eclipse glasses to students for free. No one should look directly at the sun with their eyes or sunglasses. They should only use solar-safe eclipse glasses for direct viewing or look at projections of the sun onto another surface.  

The SPS will also have table-top projection viewers set up for slightly enlarged images of the partially blocked solar disk. Additionally, one can see small crescent-shaped images projected on the ground under trees with leaves or by using objects with small holes in their surface such as a colander.

Walter said the sky in this area will not darken as it did during the 2017 total solar eclipse. In fact, someone standing outside in South Carolina on Monday will not know an eclipse is taking place without looking at the sun with eclipse glasses or on the ground for the projected crescent images.

In the Orangeburg area, the maximum amount of the sun’s disk that will be blocked by the moon is 74%, which will occur at 3:10 p.m. Other times before and after that, a smaller portion of the Sun will be blocked. One can follow the changes in shape of the sun’s disk by going out to look every 10 minutes from 2-4 p.m. 

To view a total eclipse, a person must be directly in the path of totality and that path is only 50-150 miles wide. This year, the path of totality will travel from Mexico, through Texas, into the Midwest, through upstate New York and upper New England before moving into Canada.

The rest of the continental United States will view a partial eclipse and the maximum amount of the disk that is covered by the moon depends on how far one is from the path of totality.

Walter said a total solar eclipse generally occurs only 2-4 times per year somewhere in the world. Because the path of totality is so narrow, most people never see a total eclipse. The last one that occurred in South Carolina was on August 21, 2017.

The next one in South Carolina will be on March 30, 2052, but only along our southwest coast, and on May 11, 2078, a total eclipse will pass through the upper half of the state of South Carolina.