And since the 2026 one is fresh, the 2027 one has a lot of hype and more FOMO for those who MO'ed.
It’s a rare and impressive occasion. It’s ok for people to be excited about it.
Buy your glasses in advance.
Humans have, and have had for a very long time. And eclipses do happen a lot more often than we realize, as the world is a big place, and not everything visible to us on one side is even talked about on the other side of this sphere, so international sites like BBC make it seem like a lot more stuff is happening, compared to less "this is about the entire planet" news.
We had like 60 seconds of totality, sharing the glasses with my wife would mean we get 30 seconds each. Of course both of us want double the viewing time and the glasses are a couple of euros.
https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety
It's during the partial/annular/penumbral phases when you use the protective eyewear, and those are lasting a couple of hours on each side.
But even protected viewing should be curtailed to a couple of minutes at a time.
Those are also by far the most interesting phases to watch. Totality itself is just kind of dark.
https://eclipse.aas.org/eye-safety/how-to-tell-if-viewers-ar...
I've found that a lot of vendors sell them in large quantity packs, for educators and institutional use. And it is not the sort of thing to find on the racks of stores in the off-seasons. I was unprepared for the last eclipse over the United States. Perhaps in the next two decades, I can score a pair of safety glasses.