“Galileo peered at the Sun through his telescope”
He would have blinded himself if he’d tried to do that.
https://solar-center.stanford.edu/galileo/
[snip] Galileo became completely blind by the age of 74, but NOT because he looked at the Sun through his telescope. He always projected an image of the Sun onto a surface. Remember, like Galileo, you should NEVER look directly at the Sun! [/snip]
With cloud cover, the solar disc is safe to look at. I’ve observed sunspots with the naked eye.