Even with Baltimore’s partial eclipse, the sun’s corona is something to behold

And no, not the beer with the little golden crown, but the outermost part of the actual sun’s atmosphere.

Unfortunately, Baltimore won’t be in the path of totality on April 8, so the sun’s corona won’t be totally visible from here.

However, Baltimoreans can still enjoy the solar eclipse from places like the Maryland Science Center, which is offering a watch party for this year’s eclipse.

Val Sullivan, the Inner Harbor-based institution’s marketing manager, said that the Maryland Science Center organized festivities to both prepare for and witness the partial eclipse.

“We’ll focus on getting ready for the solar event with stations set up around the building dedicated to exploring a variety of sun-safe viewing techniques, creating pinhole viewers and, of course, handing out lots of eclipse glasses,” said Sullivan via email.

“Around 2 p.m., we’ll switch over to party mode,” Sullivan added. “We’ll encourage folks to join us outdoors on our harborside patio to put those pinhole viewers and eclipse glasses to use.”

The Maryland Science Center will also offer ticketed access to its rooftop observatory, which boasts a computer-driven telescope with the capability to just point and click to see most anywhere in the galaxy.

The science center will also livestream the total solar eclipse on screens placed throughout the building, including on its Davis Planetarium dome, where attendees get year-round access to material about the solar system.

In addition to the Maryland Science Center’s festivities, several Baltimore institutions and organizations will have their own events running up to the historic eclipse. For instance, Morgan State University’s engineering physics department will host an event on Saturday afternoon for people to make their own eclipse glasses and learn other safe viewing techniques.

Beyond the eclipse, Baltimore maintains a massive footprint in space exploration through the Space Telescope Science Institute. The operations center, which has offices in Hampden and Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus, coordinates research and mission processes for the James Webb, Hubble and Nancy Grace Roman telescopes. Matthew Burger, a senior astronomical data scientist at the institute with a Ph.D. in astronomy, said the reason places like Delaware and Baltimore won’t see the eclipse in its totality is all in the shadows.

“There’s, like, two parts of the shadow,” said Burger. “There’s a part called the ‘umbra’ where all the light in the sun, from the sun, is blocked; and the penumbra is the region where not all of it is blocked.”

Burger added that we don’t get solar eclipses every month because the moon’s orbit is tilted.

Even though the moon’s shadow on Earth won’t completely block our view of the sun in Baltimore, those special glasses will still be necessary for anybody trying to view the eclipse.

“It’ll hurt your eyes,” said Burger, adding: “The glasses are very important.”

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Do you know of any other Baltimore events commemorating the April 8 eclipse? Let us know by emailing baltimore@technical.ly.

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Update: Article updated April 1 with additional events.