Fort Pierce - Monday April 8, 2024: Indian River State College's Hallstrom Planetarium on the Fort Pierce Massey campus, together with The Treasure Coast Astronomical Society, are hosting safe, guided views of today's solar eclipse.
Planetarium Director, IRSC Associate Professor of Astronomy Jon Bell has announced that Members of the Treasure Coast Astronomical Society and student club members of IRSC’s Hallstrom Astronomy Society will be on hand to help interested observers safely view the eclipse using powerful filters that allow you to look directly at the solar eclipse without injuring your eyes.
The event is open to the community at large as well as to IRSC employees, students and their families. It is being held at the Planetarium starting at 1:30 p.m. and it will last until 4:30 p.m. this afternoon.
The eclipse will be seen as total for those in a narrow corridor running in a northeast arc from Texas, through parts of the Midwest into upper New England. However here along Florida's Treasure Coast it will only be seen as a partial solar eclipse.
From our location, the moon will first begin to cut across the sun's light at 1:48 p.m. The maximum eclipse of sunlight that we'll be able to observe happens at 3:03 p.m. when the moon will be blocking about 60% of the sun. The moon will continue to move eastward across the path of the sun's light until our star's sunlight is fully restored at 4:16 p.m.
In the case of cloudy weather, viewing of the eclipse will be done indoors, on the domed ceiling of the IRSC Hallstrom Planetarium where you'll be able to see images of the eclipse from other areas where the skies are clear. The Planetarium will also show real-time views of the sun where it is totally eclipsed, from places like Texas, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, western and northern New York state, then through southern Canada and northern Maine.
For those who would like to see a total eclipse, but don't want to leave the Treasure Coast, you'll have to wait until August 12, 2045, 21 years from now.
Eclipse glasses will be on-sale at the IRSC Bookstore. For more information, call the IRSC Box Office 772-462-4750
