Here’s the first known motion picture of a solar eclipse—shot by a British magician in 1900.

In Baltimore, we’ll see a fairly decent solar eclipse on April 8, 2024—the moon’s shadow will obscure the sun by more than 90 percent. I’ll be safely looking up; eclipses fascinate me.

There are a number of great online sources of information on the April eclipse. A good one—with animations and simulations—is Eclipse2024.org. NASA is, of course, excellent, too. Even Atlas Obscura has created a selection of eclipse-related stories. That’s where I learned that in 1900, British magician Nevil Maskelyne, Jr. traveled from England to the US with some specialized photography equipment. He traveled to North Carolina with his focus on only one subject: The sun.

Sabrina Imbler for Atlas Obscura writes that the British magician successfully “captured the first-ever footage of a solar eclipse. The film, which lasts one minute and eight seconds, soon disappeared. Historians hunted for decades to track down this rare scientific marvel, to no avail. But on May 30, 2019, archivists from the British Film Institute and The Royal Astronomical Society announced the rediscovery of this monumental clip of the moon blotting out the sun.” It is considered to be the oldest surviving astronomical film, according to a press release from BFI National Archive and the Royal Astronomical Society.

Before you look up, learn about certified eclipse glasses.

Eclipse glasses have their safety certified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). You can tell if a pair of solar eclipse glasses meet today’s standards if they are labeled ISO 12312-2 (sometimes written as ISO 12312-2:2015). Eclipse glasses manufacturers send their products to specialized labs that test whether the lenses comply with the ISO 12312-2 safety specifications. 

Unfortunately, some vendors sell solar eclipse glasses with the ISO label that haven’t actually been tested and certified. The only way to be totally sure that your eclipse glasses are safe is to buy them from a source that the American Astronomical Society (AAS) has approved as reputable. The AAS reviews hundreds of solar eclipse glasses vendors to check that they have actually been tested and approved by the ISO, and to perform their own examinations of the products. They have a list of all their approved reputable vendors that you can check.