Watching the eclipse with children in Ceuta: safety, patience and a colander

The problem with children and the Sun is not that they are reckless: their lens is more transparent than an adult's and transmits more blue and ultraviolet light to the retina. On top of that, a child will not keep cardboard glasses properly positioned for two hours straight, and eclipse glasses worn badly — slipped down, resting on the nose, chewed — stop protecting.

The solution that works: do not look, project

During the partial phase, from 09:40 to 10:45, there are two projection methods you can build from things already in the kitchen, and both are far more entertaining than staring at the sky. Nobody looks at the Sun: you look at the ground, or inside a box.

The colander: five seconds to set up

Take a kitchen colander, turn your back to the Sun and cast its shadow onto white card or pale ground. Each hole acts as a pinhole camera and projects an image of the Sun: while it is eclipsed, every patch of light will be a crescent instead of a circle. It works instantly, at any age, and children are delighted that dozens of little patches change shape through the morning.

The shoebox: the week-before project

1. Take a shoebox and line the inside in black (paint, card or marker pen).
2. Make a small, clean hole — a couple of millimetres — at one end, and tape foil inside with the hole pierced through it.
3. At the other end, tape white paper: that is the screen.
4. Cut a viewing slot in the side near the screen so you can look inside.
5. With your back to the Sun, aim the hole at it until the disc appears on the screen. The longer the box, the bigger the image.

And totality — can they look?

Yes, and they should. Between 10:45 and 10:50 the solar disc is completely covered and there is nothing to filter: the corona is faint. That is the moment for everybody's glasses to come off. The rule for adults is simple: one grown-up assigned to each child, with a single job — putting the glasses back on at the first flash of Sun. Do not delegate that to the child.

How long they will actually last

An eclipse lasts two and a half hours, it is August, and for the first hour nothing visibly happens. No child will sit through that watching the sky, nor should they have to. The realistic plan: arrive, set up camp with shade, play and eat through the first hour, build the projection halfway through the partial phase once the bite is obvious, and concentrate attention on the ten minutes before totality, when the light starts doing strange things and the phenomenon explains itself.

• Bring your own shade: a parasol or light awning. In August, mid-morning, with the Sun at 38°, there is no useful natural shade.
• Water, and more water. And something salty.
• Somewhere with a toilet nearby. It decides the choice of spot more often than the horizon does.
• In Ceuta, the southern coast and the area around the Maritime Park are the most comfortable for this: services, shade and somewhere to sit.

What to tell them beforehand

That the Moon is going to pass right in front of the Sun and that, for a few minutes, night will fall mid-morning. That they will see stars. That the birds will go quiet and it will suddenly turn cold. And that the last part will not happen again in Ceuta in their lifetime: the next total eclipse visible from here is not around the corner. It works better than any explanation of celestial mechanics, and it is true.

Frequently asked questions