Regarding the sunlight, we were born with natural filters and means in our eyes to deal with uv light from the sun. It's natural and though bright isn't pleasant you will not have uv damage to the eyes unless you're looking straight at it. Man made uv however is a totally different animal and it can mess you up.
Can you please elaborate further about the eye natural UV filters (in plural if possible)?
I'm being serious, I had a situation on an occasion last summer, where I was exposed to the sunlight for a lot more time than original planned, the original plan was doing a minor fixing of satellite system for 30 min to 1 hour max from 6:00 to 6:30 AM or maximum 7:00 AM, to fix 1 faulty line with all it's related stuff, so I went there without head cap or sun glasses, but things were not as expected, there were a lot more corrosions and I ended up doing 8 lines (18 junctions in and out of parts) and a lot of makeshifts to replace corroded parts of the cables, and all the rest of related fiddling, it took until 1:30 PM to finish the job (I had my arms burned bright red by that time), but I tried to avoid the sunlight most of the time, and was thinking about that the huge white satellite dish was even further concentrating the reflected sunlight of it, but I was in get down and dirty situation, and also was not fully aware (nor educated) about the hazards, all was in my mined while working was my youth days (and years) of playing in the school yard under the sun and going to the beach and swimming pools without any sunglasses or head caps, and I thought that my eyes should have muscle memory (if that's the correct English expression). But later that night I felt a small headache, then slept normally, and everything seemed normal for about a month, only some tiny (barely noticable) no vision stationary spots started to show up in my eye sight field of view, and that's different from my familiar floaters (which moves in my eyes liquid humorous according to eye movement and gravity), other than that nothing new and accordingly I forgot about all that event. Then at the end of that month when I accidentally shrugged my head to avoid a flying insect (big flying ant) I got immediate headache (similar to the one at the night of the sun exposure day), but with immediate dizziness this time, I went to sleep, and next morning I started to see big area of no vision spot (Grey) when I turn my eyes in certain direction, so I made eye sight exam appointment, and by the time that it took to happen, I was diagnosed with multiple retinal tissue transforming spots and liquidised humorous gel in the left eye that showed the big blind spot (apparently it's several and not only one big spot as I thought) of retinal transforming, I think he meant degeneration spots (he said its retinal tissue thinning when I asked) located at around the macula in the middle FOV and the peripheral section (I guess), which there was not any sign of it present in my previous appointments the year earlier, and I could see the Grey spots (retina tissue cells) that the doctor was talking about while he was lighting the inside of my eyes with his new stronger white light 6500 K (head light this time), while I had not seen them before in the previous check ups when he used to use his older weaker neutral penlight 4500 K, where the cells of my retina looked smooth and healthy, when I was diagnosed totally healthy but with only the floaters issue.
(*I'm guessing here that many of us know how our fovea manage to see the inside peripheral retina cells inside our eyes when the doctor illuminate the inside of the eye with a pen flashlight.)
Mined you, I have Green eyes and very light sensitive all over my life and have allergy, and was living mostly in dark environment (and daily total darkness periods) for the vast recent years of my life before that event, not totally, but mostly (much more than what one may consider normal conditions), so my eyes were not used to sunlight exposure for years, and got myself all of sudden directly into that sunny situation, it was sudden impact on the eyes. Another thing, until now I still have good eyesight (beside those blind spots and floaters) about 9.5/10 in each eye, and don't have cataract (my eyes lenses are clear and haven't yellowed up yet the thing that may help blocking UV rays and protect the retina tissue in people with cataract), my dark adaptation vision is very strong, and from thorough extreme darkness vision testing, I seem to not have lost any of my dark vision in any of the same degenerated cells spots that I lost day sight in them.
Maybe "MeMeMe" or anyone who got some knowledge about eyes sunlight exposure can shade some light (little pun there). Can that one session cause or speed up retinal degeneration? And what do you know about those eye's natural UV filters if they exist?