Re: Sunspots visible to *protected* eye
Not all welder's goggles are good enough. A casual purchaser may not get goggles rated for arc welding, like you recommend, but just pull something that looks like welding goggles off the hardware store shelf.
A rating of at least 14 is required for sun viewing, and the goggles I found were only rated at 5 or 10 off the shelf.. I combined two glass filters to get a rating of 15.
Will check out the sunspots as soon as the sun comes out from behind the clouds.