ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The colors you wear during the April 8 celestial event can impact your viewing experience. Forget about wearing neutrals like black, white, gray or brown, because you will fade into the background. Instead, astronomers suggest you dress like it's Christmas and wear red or green.

What You Need To Know

  • The wavelengths of light the human eye is sensitive to vary with the intensity of light, an effect known as the Purkinje effect

  • Wearing green or red will provide a color saturation of colors even low light

  • Anyone looking up to the sky should be wearing a pair of safe solar viewing glasses

Experts at Solar Eyeglasses say a few minutes before totality our eyes enter a phase known as mesopic vision. We experience what is called the Purkinje effect.

Astronomer and solar eclipse chaser Gordon Telepun explains that in a nutshell, this effect changes how we perceive colors in low light. Green will pop and look much brighter against the dim surroundings. Wearing a warm tone like red in combination with the bright cool tone of green will make the solar eclipse appear more vividly.

"The retina and your brain have an unbelievable range of light adaptation to continually adjust for the decrease in lightning and expose the surroundings to you. In this demonstration, I am simulating the Purkinje effect by decreasing the brightness, desaturating the reds and adding a little blue and green. This is the effect you look for and try to appreciate in your surroundings during the eclipse," said Gordon Telepun, the creator of the Solar Eclipse Timer. 

To really see the changes in color saturation, you need a lot of people to wear these complementary red and green colors.