Saturday, August 19, 2017

Solar eclipse knit hat

Y'all, I am so excited to see the solar eclipse tomorrow! I extended a trip to visit my family for a few days so that I could swing back through St. Louis first just so I could witness my first ever total solar eclipse. I designed this knit hat to mark the occasion. The hat features the path of the moon as it covers the sun. I even embroidered on the corona of the sun onto the hat. If only the solar eclipse was during the winter! Unfortunately, I'll only be wearing this when I am in air conditioned places on Monday, but it is awesome anyways.

You can get the hat here on Ravelry or purchase directly here. It will be free up until the eclipse with the promotion code "Eclipse2017".


Here are some interesting facts I have learned about the eclipse:
1) It is only safe to look at the sun when the eclipse is in totality. It is never safe to look at the sun, but it is even more dangerous during the eclipse because the decrease in ambient light will make your pupils dilate and expose more of the retina. Bottom line: DON'T LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN UNTIL TOTALITY! If you are not lucky enough to be in the path of totality, DON'T LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN!

2) Safe ways to view the sun include special approved solar glasses (my rad ones complement my knit hat perfectly), pinhole camera obscura viewing boxes that project an image of the sun onto the inside of the box, and even using binoculars to direct an image of the sun onto a screen and focus on it. Find instructions for 6 safe ways to view the eclipse here

3) Some animals will begin their nighttime behavior during totality even though it is in the middle of the day. I am particularly excited to witness this occurring.

4) Many people will be participating in citizen science efforts by using apps on their smart phones to record observations during the eclipse. In particular, one project by NASA will be monitoring temperature before, during, and after the eclipse (more information here) and another project from the California Academy of Sciences will record plants and animal behavior during the eclipse (more information here). 

Enjoy the eclipse and the knitting pattern!



4 comments:

  1. The coupon code didn't work! I tried
    Eclipse 2017 and "Eclipse 2017"
    😢

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you, but the code did not work :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Coupon code should be fixed now. Let me know if you have troubles with it.

    ReplyDelete