Technologies

Don’t Miss Out on the Perfect Solar Eclipse Photo: Tips on Taking Pictures Today

Take these steps to minimize potential damage to your camera or phone lens, and get a great photo.

Today’s solar eclipse is the talk of the town. During its trip across North America, the total eclipse will hit parts of Mexico, a long diagonal stripe across the US and a stretch of eastern Canada. It’ll be quite the event, especially since the next total solar eclipse to hit North America won’t happen until August 2044.

Nearly half of the US population lives within a 200-mile drive of the event, giving many people a chance to catch a glimpse or a photo.

Remember, you must wear solar eclipse glasses if you’re looking up during the eclipse. While the sun will be completely hidden behind the moon for a few minutes, the rest of the eclipse will be just as harmful to human vision as it would be if you stared at the sun on any other day. So you’ll want to make sure that your solar glasses will protect your eyes while you watch.

You’ll want to protect your camera and its lenses, too, if you’re among the throngs who’ll be aiming a smartphone or DSLR at the sun in hopes of capturing that perfect image to share on social media of the last total solar eclipse in the US for the next 20 years.

Here are a few things to know before pointing your sensitive and expensive devices at the giant fireball in the sky.

Taking photos of the solar eclipse with a smartphone

A great many solar eclipse photos are likely to come from smartphones, given that just about everyone has one and that many are packed with very capable cameras.

First things first, you’ll want to pick up a solar filter. You don’t need anything fancy. You can buy little solar lenses that you can physically hold in front of your phone camera lens for a little over $10. In a pinch, you could use one of the lenses from a pair of paper solar eclipse glasses to achieve the same effect.

In general, your phone’s auto mode should take care of most of the heavy lifting. Phone makers have spent tons of time tuning the cameras to the appropriate settings to take the best possible picture. If you want to take matters into your own hands, you can always switch to manual mode — but do spend a bit of time before the eclipse familiarizing yourself with those settings.

A few other helpful tips:

Turn off your flash. Once totality hits, you’ll be taking pictures essentially at night and your flash isn’t going to help. Plus, it can annoy people around you.
Only use zoom if your phone is equipped with an optical zoom lens like the Galaxy S24 Ultra or the iPhone 15. Check your phone model to see if yours comes equipped with it. Using digital zoom will reduce resolution and make the image look blocky and unappealing.
Most modern smartphones feature a burst shot mode. The crown jewel of eclipse photography, the diamond ring, is only visible for a split-second and a burst shot mode will give you better odds of capturing it than if you try to time it yourself.
Practice. Taking good pictures of the sun is no easy task and you don’t want to spend the entire time fiddling with your smartphone camera settings.
Google also recommends bringing a portable battery bank. Camera use is a huge battery drain, and you may need some extra juice.

A Photographer’s Adventure With the Last Eclipse

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Taking photos of the solar eclipse with a DSLR

Many of the rules for smartphone photography also apply if you plan on taking a DSLR or mirrorless camera to the event. The steps to get there are slightly different. Smartphones can use virtually any solar filter, but cameras require something that’ll fit on the end of your camera’s lens barrel since it’s very difficult to hold a filter while taking a picture with a regular camera.

You may think you need a UV filter for solar photography. In reality, you’ll want an ND (neutral density) filter. ND filters reduce the amount of light coming into the lens the same way solar eclipse glasses reduce the amount of light coming into your eyes. K&F Concepts has a good one designed specifically for celestial photography.

The next factor is size. Filters come in various sizes and the size you need depends on what lens you own. Check the barrel of your lens. You’ll want to find the ø symbol with a number next to it. That number is the millimeter size you need.

If your lens doesn’t have that measurement on it, you can find the measurements on the box the lens came in or on the manufacturer’s website. If you get an incorrectly sized filter, it won’t fit on your camera properly, so make sure you look before you leap since ND filters can get quite expensive.

Once you obtain a solar filter, the same general tips apply to a regular camera. Practice photographing the sun over the weekend before the eclipse so you can dial in your preferred settings. Use burst mode to capture the diamond ring, bring spare batteries, and make sure your equipment is in order before the event.

Camera owners may also want to consider bringing multiple lenses to get different types of pictures, and you should definitely bring a tripod if you’re planning on long exposure shots, or just for stability in general. (A remote shutter release helps as well.) If you’re comfortable with it, shooting in raw image format can also produce some amazing results after some editing.

Can I take photos of the solar eclipse without a filter?

Human eyes can be damaged in seconds when staring at the sun — and the same is true for eyes looking through an unprotected camera lens at the eclipse. Camera lenses themselves are a bit more resilient. They might be able to handle the occasional sun photograph, but the longer and more frequently the camera is pointed at the sun, the more likely it is that damage will occur.

This can happen in a variety of ways, including damage to the lens, camera internals and mounting hardware. Camera lenses are essentially fancy and expensive magnifying glasses, and anyone who used a standard magnifying glass to concentrate sunbeams as a kid already knows how dangerous it can be for things on the other side of the sunbeam.

You may be able to get away with the occasional snap of the sun with an unprotected camera without damage as long as it’s quick and it’s not a long-exposure shot (and you’re not looking directly at it yourself). However, given how expensive cameras, camera lenses and smartphones are, better to err on the side of caution and use a solar filter.

In addition to safety, the solar filter can also help you take more effective pictures of the sun. Cameras — especially smartphone cameras — often have a rough time with super bright lights like the sun. A solar filter will reduce the brightness so you’ll be able to get much cleaner pictures of the eclipse.

During the brief moment of totality, you might consider removing your solar filter. Everything will be so dark that it’ll be unnecessary, and it’ll help if you want a good shot of the corona. Just make sure to put it back on if you want photos as the eclipse wanes.

Don’t forget to actually watch the eclipse

This is the last total solar eclipse to run through North America until 2044. It’s a once-in-a-generation event, unless you plan on traveling to Russia in 2026 or Egypt in 2027. Remember to put the camera down at some point and enjoy the moment. A celestial event like this doesn’t happen every day.

While it is a singular event for us here on Earth, astronauts on the ISS will have three total opportunities to watch it.

If you live in the path of the solar eclipse, you’re also encouraged to leave pets indoors with lights on and shutters closed as the transition to nighttime in the middle of the day can cause stress to animals. And systems that run on solar power may experience significant impacts on solar generation, so that’s another thing to keep in mind.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Friday, Jan. 9

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Jan. 9.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? The Across clues were kind of tough today. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Question in a late-night text
Answer: YOUUP

6A clue: Plentiful
Answer: AMPLE

7A clue: Saint ___ and Nevis (Caribbean nation)
Answer: KITTS

8A clue: Baby-bringing bird
Answer: STORK

9A clue: Take care of the tab
Answer: PAY

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Himalayan herbivores
Answer: YAKS

2D clue: Fail to include
Answer: OMIT

3D clue: «High five!»
Answer: UPTOP

4D clue: The «U» of UV rays
Answer: ULTRA

5D clue: Annoying to deal with
Answer: PESKY

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

Technologies

I Got Up Close and Personal With Boston Dynamics’ New Atlas Robot

Before Atlas takes its first steps into the world of work later this year, I found myself face-to-face with CES 2026’s most talked-about robot on the show floor.

When I say that I went hands-on with the new Boston Dynamics Atlas robot, I mean that I actually held hands with it. This humanoid robot, which CNET just awarded the Best Robot of CES Award, is one of the most advanced in the world, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get up close and personal with it.

This product version of the robot, which is set to be shipped to Hyundai factories imminently to start working, has been the talk of CES this year. The specific Atlas robot I encountered was a static model that wasn’t turned on or fully operational. Our interactions were, therefore, sadly one-sided. Still, I ran my hands over its soft-touch plastic shell and gently prodded at its finger joints, wondering how it would feel if they gripped me back.

People tend to have varying feelings about humanoid robots — understandable given that they are built to some degree in our image, while also usually being stronger than us, with «brains» that we don’t fully understand. Atlas definitely evokes contradictory emotions for me — even more so when I stood face-to-face with it.

I’m in awe of the engineering, a little fearful of its capabilities, hesitant about what it could mean for the future of humanity and charmed by its design and styling. The periwinkle blue iteration of Atlas that I met on the show floor at CES 2026 almost bears more resemblance to a Dyson product than it does the industrial robots that defined Boston Dynamics’ early days, when it was best known for its work with DARPA.

«There’s a lot of really specific things about this robot that probably look a little weird,» said Zachary Jackowski, Boston Dynamics VP and general manager of Atlas. He pointed to the legs, which he described as «like nothing anyone else was doing.»

Atlas’ thighs are narrow set and in line with the torso, while the calves are wider set, attached to their upper counterparts with a circular joint. This robot is, in fact, all subtle curves and soft lines. There are no harsh edges or stark angles.

During a year when CES has been flooded with humanoid robots, Atlas definitely does stand out due to its design. It appears both less classically human and less industrial than some of its peers, while also lacking the often intimidating, featureless faces they tend to exhibit. Instead, it has two low-set cameras resembling eyes placed where you’d usually expect a mouth to be. Its face is a perfect flat circle, defined by an LED halo that gives it a somewhat Pixar lamp effect.

I asked Jackowski why Boston Dynamics decided to skew so relatively unhuman with this version of its humanoid. «Well, it’s not a human,» he said. «It projects the wrong first impression about a robot to have it pretend to be something that it’s not.»

Particularly in the early days of humanoids, he added, robots won’t have anything like human-like intelligence. People should look at it and see it for what it is — a tool for performing tasks safely and efficiently.

In fact, most of the design decisions were made to keep Atlas as simple, scalable and safe as possible, Jackowski said. I remark that there’s some irony in thinking of a humanoid robot as simple, given the complexity of the technology and development process to bring Atlas to life.

The key to making it simple, Jackowski said, is having a strong enough grasp of the technology to «accomplish the complex thing of building a humanoid robot,» but then being able to take it apart and understand that you can use fewer computers and actuators in it while achieving the same results.

And it’s essential to Boston Dynamics that Atlas is perceived as simple. After all, it’s a general-purpose humanoid, which might eventually be sent far and wide to fulfil all manner of roles. Jackowski calls it the «ultimate generalist.»

Simplicity aside, there are aspects of Atlas that Jackowski believes set it apart from other humanoids at the show. «The repairability of this robot is crazy good,» he said. «The runtime is crazy good. The strength is unlike anything.»

From working in Hyundai’s manufacturing plants, Atlas’s job trajectory is to eventually graduate to many of the same industrial environments where Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot works, before moving to bussing tables in the service industry and eventually into the home. The robot will evolve between now and then, Jackowski said. However, this could be an early glimpse of the type of humanoid that will eventually be our housemate.

That’s some way away, though, which is probably for the best. As I gaze up at Atlas, which I’d guess is around the same height as my husband, my feeling is that, however impressive Atlas is, I’m still not ready for it to move in.

Technologies

This Star Wars Dartboard Has a Secret That Will Stop You From Using the Force to Win

This cool dartboard has cameras to track your score and keep you honest

Right in the middle of the high-tech show floor at CES 2026 sits a pub called the Bull and Barrel with some of the coolest dartboards I’ve seen. Target Darts was showcasing its collaboration with both Star Wars and Xbox. Darts may not be for everyone, but I love «shooting some arrows» in my basement with the family. I also love anything Star Wars themed, so these tick a lot of boxes.

The basic Star Wars set comes with a branded board and wall protector that resembles the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon and costs $200. The board is of very high quality, with a tight-knit sisal fiber face, and the protector is thick enough to keep stray shots out of your drywall. The graphics are cool too, with nods to the original Falcon and even have the gold dice hanging above.

The big tech twist to this board, though, is the Omni light ring around the outside. It uses four cameras to track your dart’s position, then sends that info to an app that keeps score. The scoreboard is crisp and clear and uses the voice of legendary darts announcer John McDonald to narrate your game. It’s pretty great to hear his voice announce my terrible scores.

The Omni also allows you to connect with other players worldwide via shared scoreboards. I love the idea of my dad having a board at his house or playing a match with me at my house. It adds a feeling of community to home darts that you don’t normally get outside a pub or bar.

The Omni is a much more expensive proposition than the Star Wars set, coming in at $650, but if you’re serious about the game and a Star Wars fan, it looks to be a great investment.