As preparations for the upcoming North American Solar Eclipse gain momentum, Meade Instruments now offers a broad line of white-light solar and eclipse-viewing optics called the EclipseView series. Consisting of a variety of devices, this new batch of products is designed to give users a wide range of options for observing our closest star. The entire EclipseView line features ISO-certified film filters that block 99.999% of the intense light from the sun, plus 100% of harmful ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) radiation and allow safe viewing of sunspots, granulations, planetary transits, and all phases of solar eclipses. Please remember: NEVER look at the sun without proper protection—immediate and irreversible damage to your eyes can occur, up to and including blindness.
The offerings begin with viewing cards and glasses. They are the most basic viewing tool that simply offer protection for your eyes when looking directly at the sun with your naked eyes. Offered in packs of five or ten for families, friends, or school classes, each one is made of heavy-duty paper. The cards have a single long filter that is held in front of your eyes while the glasses feature the familiar form factor that you wear to leave your hands free.
Next is the 10x50 EclipseView binocular. It operates like a conventional Porro prism binocular, but comes with removeable filters that fit over the front objectives and are held in place using small thumbscrews to ensure they won’t accidentally come off during solar observation. With the filters removed, the binocular can be used for conventional terrestrial or nighttime astronomical viewing with the benefits of a large exit pupil that completely covers most fully dilated pupils in low-light conditions, to avoid vignetting. For long-duration observation sessions, such as watching all phases of a total solar eclipse, the EclipseView binocular can be tripod-mounted using optional adapters.
Offered in 82mm or larger 114mm versions, with manual tabletop alt-azimuth mounts, the EclipseView reflector telescopes were designed and engineered for portability and versatility. They can be used for conventional nighttime viewing or, with the simple installation of the included filter, solar and solar eclipse observation. Like the binocular, the filter fits on the front of the optical tube (OTA), and with it removed, the telescope can be used to view celestial subjects such as the moon, planets, comets, and meteor showers. To ensure you can get observing right out of the box, Meade includes two eyepieces that produce a low and medium magnification range, a 2x Barlow lens that effectively doubles the magnification of each of the eyepieces for more observation options, plus nighttime and solar finders.
Stepping up to options with full-sized tripods and longer focal lengths (which translates to higher magnification potential), you have the choice of a 60mm refractor or 76mm reflector. As with the smaller tabletop models, these are complete observation rigs with eyepieces and finders, so you can start observing right out of the box. To add a little more usability to the 60mm refractor, Meade also includes a 90-degree erect-image prism that allows it to be used as a conventional spotting scope, in addition to solar and nighttime viewing.
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