We tried to watch the eclipse through a cereal box

The eclipse of the century. Once in a lifetime event. Not to be missed. These were just some of the many ways used to describe the solar eclipse that occurred this morning.

If you watched the news at all this week, you could be forgiven for thinking it would be the most spectacular thing ever.

And sure, it probably would be if you had a very expensive telescope, but how would it be for the normal broke student? We decided to find out.

Keenly setting our alarms for 8.30am (a time which students rarely see), so we didn’t miss any of the action, we set to work on making our vintage “camera”.

This is not as hi-tech as it sounds due to fact the “camera” was being constructed out of an old Crunchy Nut box, tin foil, electrical tape and a pair of scissors.

After watching loads of YouTube tutorials, we came up with something that looked a bit like one on our computer screen. The idea was that the sun would shine through a tiny hole in the foil, and the moon would act as a shadow which could be seen on the inside of the box.

Science bitch

Our next method was a lot easier as it was just two pieces of white paper, one with a pin prick in it, allowing the sun to shine through on to the back piece of paper.

We were very sceptical with this method due to its eye-watering simplicity and the severe lack of effort required.

Worth sight loss?

Our final idea was the one that most people in the probably went for. A pair of Primark sunglasses. Despite all the warnings we decided that it was worth the risk to see this monumental natural event. And anyway, what’s the worst that could happen…

We started with the Crunchy Nut camera, which proved a massive waste of time. In fact all we gained was a few odd looks, which was to be expected when looking at the sun through a cereal box in the middle of the road.

Moving swiftly on to the paper method, which came with a bit more success. But you could just about make out a sun shaped dot with a bit missing. But this wasn’t the spectacle we’d been promised.

We wanted more, and with that decided to risk our future eyesight by donning the aviators and simply staring at the sun.

Again the results were pretty crap. Only getting a brief glimpse of the sun being blocked, before having to find a dark space for 10 minutes while our eyes recovered from the torture.

Magical

So our conclusions: If you don’t mind seeing green and yellow dots in your eyesight for the foreseeable future, buy some Primark aviators and have a glance up every now and again.

If you’d prefer to avoid blindness, and you don’t want to look like an idiot, just switch on the TV, make a cup of tea and enjoy it in its full glory. Or just stay in bed.