The best coverage will be on television. Otherwise unless you are in the 100% totality zone DO NOT look at it. The eyes retina does not have any pain sensors so the ultra violet rays will burn your eye and you won't even notice until the next day. The truly only safe way to view it is to look at the reflection off of a car windshield. Don't let this phenomenon destroy your eye sight.
I'm not photographing the eclipse and I don't have eclipse glasses, how can all of us unprepared people see the spectacle?
It is called a shoebox camera. Take a large shoebox and put a pinhole - yes, using a slender hat pin - make sure you penetrate the end of the box with the pin perpendicular to the box.
Hold the box so that the hole is aimed at the sun and it will form an image on the opposite side of the shoebox where you can view it with your back to the sun. At totality, you can directly observe the eclispe, then when the diamond ring forms, back to the shoebox
You beat me to the punch. This is how I've done it before. Someone told me to use a dark negative, but that didn't work very well.
Long ago, when I was a grad student, I heard a lecture series by Edward Teller. He said they had no idea how bright the first H-bomb would be, so he showed up with a fist-full of completely dark negatives, and removed them a few at a time until he could see well.
I'm not photographing the eclipse and I don't have eclipse glasses, how can all of us unprepared people see the spectacle?
Not much time left, but you should be able to obtain eclipse glasses -- the simple cardboard glasses work quite well, but as many have warned, get them from a reputable vendor. The AAS has a site listing reputable vendors: https://eclipse.aas.org/resources/solar-filters
NASA and the AAS have also relaxed their advice on welder's glass for those who prefer that route: they now advise that #12 welder's glass or higher is sufficient (but don't expect to find any in the workplace; most welder's glass is #10 or lower, and almost all glass at #10 or above is on the welder's full face shield or helmut). You can find it on the web, but there is a lot of phony welder's glass being peddled there -- AAS warns of this but does not yet have a safe vendors list for welding glass, so it's buyer beware.
I'll also be primarily interested in atmosphere and ambience on eclipse day. I'm neither equipped nor a tenth as knowledgeable as the thousands of professionals who will be recording this event for posterity (and to make money). I've belatedly discovered that the Sun's approximately 65 degrees of altitude that day will be a bit too high to include in a view of the front of my house even with the very high and wide angle of view on my GoPro, at least while I'm set up on my property. If I moved north far enough I'd probably get both in the LCD but then the view of my house would probably be even smaller than the Sun (which will be tiny!). So I'm just going to set up for the nicest framed scene of the house and yard, maybe facing the camera West/Northwest with plenty of sky showing and shoot video or half-second-interval timelapse stills of the sky going dark and the shadow flying out of the Northwest at 1400 mph. And mostly I'll just take in a sight I'll only get to see once.
Be cautious buying glasses. Eclipse frenzy, fake glasses. You can tell if the glasses are dark enough, but cannot tell if they are filtering dangerous unltraviolet and infrared light.
I heard that WallyWorld was selling fake glasses (probably from China!) - if that's true there will be many people, mostly children, no doubt, that will have damaged eyes as a result of buying them. It's not worth the risk - I'll forego the "atmosphere of the experience" and watch on tv. Being able to see the smiles of my grandchildren is worth far more than any eclipse!
I saw a quick & easy way to view the eclipse with a pinhole-like device ... use a metal colander. It has lots of holes pre-drilled. Use it to project the images onto a piece of white cardboard.
B&H has a kit with five pair of glasses, rec'd mine today along with a telescope with a eclipse filter. I'm going to skip the photography for the filters as so darn expensive and I know I'm not going to be around for the next.
Are we nuts for buying eclipse glasses??? You bet and just can't wait to see how dinky it is. Now, for the astro-photographers with really powerful glass; I will envy you for that and even more for the awe I feel when I see your shots of the Milky Way and more.
we used to use an old shoe box. put e small hole in the center of one of the short ends, and tape a white card to the opposite end.hold the box hole up to the sun and the eclipse will show on the white card. save your eyes.