Well done to these eclipse-watchers in New York who mainly did put on their special glasses (Picture: Shutterstock)
If you’ve seen the people staring from the top of skyscrapers to see the eclipse, you’ll have seen most of them wearing those little cardboard eclipse glasses.
They are because even the tiny sliver of Sun visible in a total eclipse has the power to damage your eyes.
Most people like their eyesight enough to heed the warning, but some – including a former president – can’t resist the urge to stare directly at the awe of nature.
Perhaps that’s why searches for ‘painful eyes’ spiked on Google in the hours after North America was swept by darkness.
‘Why do my eyes hurt after looking at the eclipse,’ one search term read, while another asked ‘how to tell if the eclipse hurt your eyes’.
It’s not just a case of people ignoring warnings to stare directly at the Sun, either.
One breakout search term said ‘my eyes hurt after using eclipse glasses’.
Searches for ‘eyes hurt’ spiked on Google after theeclipse (Picture: Google Trends)
One of multiple comments online about eye pain from the eclipse (Picture: X)
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Lots of people were worried about their vision after the eclipse (Picture: Google Trends)
Searches for ‘eyes hurt’ were at peak popularity in the hours after the eclipse.
Some people posted online giving clues about why it was such a googled term, with one writing ‘I kept looking at the eclipse with my bare eyes!! I’M SUFFERING RIGHT NOW!! I HAVE A MAJOR HEADACHE AND MY EYES ARE SORE!!’.
If the right eye protection isn’t worn, the strength of the Sun’s brightness can even burn a mark onto the retina, as happened to one woman during the 2017 eclipse.
And not just any old pair of sunglasses will do, either.
The glasses have to be specially designed for this purpose, and darken things so much that you can’t see through them in normal conditions.
Some may have used standard sunnies, or tried to be responsible but ended up buying one of the glut of fake eclipse glasses sold online that do not have the proper protection.
People view the solar eclipse in Times Square, New York (Picture: AP)
Eclipse glasses should block everything except the brightest light in normal conditions (Picture: Reuters)
Students working at the Senate wear eclipse glasses as they view the Moon partially covering the Sun on Capitol Hill, Washington DC (Picture: AP)
You can accessorise the glasses too if you like (Picture: Reuters)
The Moon partially covering the Sun, as seen from Eagle Pass, Texas (Picture: AP)
Nasa warned: ‘The Sun’s surface is so bright that if you stare at any portion of it, no matter how small, it produces enough light to damage individual retinal cells.
‘It takes a few seconds for this to happen, but afterward, you will see a spot as big as the solar surface you glimpsed when you look away from the Sun at some other scenery.
‘Depending on how long you gazed at the Sun and how badly the retinal cells were damaged, this spot will either fade away in time or remain permanent. You should never assume that you can look away quickly enough to avoid eye damage because every person is different in terms of their retinal sensitivity.’
Alarmingly, you might not even realise you hurt your eyes until it’s too late, as your retina does not have pain receptors.
It can also take several hours for any damage to become apparent, with blurred vision and a black spot potential indications something is wrong.
If you think you might have hurt your eyes in the eclipse, book an appointment with your doctor or optician.
And always make sure to check your eclipse glasses meet the ISO 12312-2 standard (often printed on an arm) or use a pinhole viewer.