Topline
It’s time to find your old solar eclipse glasses from the “Great North American Eclipse” on April 8, 2024 — or buy some new ones. On Wednesday, Aug. 12, a solar eclipse will be visible across the Western Hemisphere, with most of Europe, all of Canada and northeast U.S. states seeing a solar eclipse. Exactly what you’ll see will depend on where you are, but solar eclipse glasses are critical to enjoy the event safely. Here’s everything you need to know about using old eclipse glasses — and where to buy new ones.
Key Facts
Although the total solar eclipse on Aug. 12 will be total only from Greenland, Iceland and Spain, both Europe and North America will see a partial eclipse. The best views from North America will be in eastern Canada and the northeastern U.S. St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador will see 53% of the sun covered, Halifax 31%, Saint John 28%, Québec City 24%, Boston 16% and New York 10%. In the U.S., the farther northeast you are, the bigger the partial eclipse you’ll see.
Eclipse glasses or front-mounted solar filters will be essential at all times. Solar eclipse glasses are available widely online and in local stores and cost about $3 each.
If you still have solar eclipse glasses leftover from the last total solar eclipse in North America in 2024, you can easily reuse them as long as they are not damaged by punctures or tears. A good way to test them is to shine a flashlight through them to test for dangerous pinholes.
Who Makes Safe Solar Eclipse Glasses In The U.S. And Europe
Major manufacturers in the U.S. of certified safe solar eclipse glasses and viewers are Tennessee-based American Paper Optics, Arizona-based Thousand Oaks Optical, California-based Rainbow Symphony, and Missouri-based DayStar Filters. In Europe, solar eclipse glasses manufacturers include Latvia-based Absolute Eclipse and Germany’s Baader Planetarium.
Over 75 million solar eclipse glasses were sold in the U.S. for the April 8, 2024 total solar eclipse. The global eclipse glasses market size was valued at approximately $225.2 million in 2024, according to Custom Market Insights, and is projected to increase to $326.1 million by 2033 — the year of the next U.S. total solar eclipse, in Alaska. About 71% of all eclipse glasses were sold in the final 30 days leading up to the April 8, 2024 eclipse.
Fears Grow About Shortages In Europe
With the path of totality in Europe traveling through Greenland, Iceland and Spain, the focus has been on these three countries about to witness a total solar eclipse. That’s left the rest of Europe — which is due to see a very deep partial solar eclipse — largely unprepared. Although the event won’t be total in most of Europe, solar eclipse glasses are crucial to see any of the partial phases. “The August 12th eclipse in Europe is tracking toward a very predictable crisis — a severe shortage of safe certified eclipse glasses,” said Jason Lewin, Chief Marketing Officer at American Paper Optics, in an interview. “Having navigated the absolute chaos during the 2017 and 2024 U.S. eclipses, we got to see firsthand how hundreds of thousands of late buyers were left stranded or, worse, resorted to buying unverified, unsafe counterfeits when retailers sold out completely.” The 2017 and 2024 total solar eclipses in North America saw problems with counterfeit products.
Eclipse Glasses With A Conservation Angle
One of the more unusual eclipse-glasses initiatives for Aug. 12 comes from the Fin Whale Eclipse Project, a Canadian youth-led campaign linking safe solar viewing with North Atlantic fin whale conservation. The project was created by the same team behind the 2024 Monarch Butterfly Eclipse Project, which distributed 500,000 eclipse glasses across the U.S. and Canada and committed $75,000 to conservation. For 2026, 15% of net proceeds from Fin Whale Eclipse Project glasses will support whale conservation through ORCA, a U.K.-based marine conservation charity. “The path of the August 12 total solar eclipse and the migration route of the North Atlantic fin whale line up in a way that feels almost unbelievable,” said Paige Denton, co-founder of The Fin Whale Eclipse Project. “It gave us a chance to connect something millions of people will be looking up to see with something important happening below the surface of the ocean.” The Fin Whale Eclipse Project’s eclipse glasses are made by Shenzhen Lionstar, which features on the American Astronomical Society Solar Eclipse Task Force’s list of vendors of safe solar viewers.