So what is the impact of glass and glass like substances on visibility in the astral? Does wearing goggles or glasses prevent a mage from effectively perceiving the astral?

Here's my understanding.

Glass is a physical object, physical objects cast astral shadows, astral shadows are "opaque."

Goggles, on the other hand, only cover the magician's eyes. Astral perception is an extraordinary sense, and calling it "seeing" is merely using a convenient metaphor. So unless the goggles are troll-sized and the astral perceiver is a pixie, I'd say no, they don't block astral "vision."

Agreeing with Aaron. Physical transparency has no relevance on the Astral, only Object vs. Non-Object & Living vs. Non-Living.

As for the goggles, as pointed out, Astral 'vision' does not rely on eyes, or sight. Even wearing full-body suite does not restrict your Astral Sight.

Hm... I guess my question has to do with those fiber optic mage goggles. You can cast through them but you can't perceive? That seems fair to me (given that you take a negative modifier).

Actually, you can't perceive through the goggles because astral perception is not a matter of seeing light. The fiber optics wouldn't redirect the astral stuff through it so you could see it.

In 2nd edition, you could not see through glass. 3rd edition they officially said you could (anything you can see through on the physical, you can see through on the astral). Don't know about 4th edition. However, I generally go with Aaron's interpretation.

In SR1 to SR3 all that would be correct.

In SR4, objects, no matter how solid, are only "astral shadows" imposing a -1 to -4 penalty (p. 114, Street Magic.)

Which contradicts that jarheads' auras are invisible in their drone bodies.

Actually, the referenced page in SM mentions that astral shadows are opaque and you can use them as cover just as on the physical plane.

Oops...

More accurately, opaque items' astral shadows are opaque, transparent item's astral shadows give the -1 to -4.

Sorry about that.

Ah so that explains the -2 penalty for fiberoptics

-3 isn't it? And that's even if you're not astrally perceiving.

Indeed.
And when you're astrally perceiving, it wouldn't work at all, as you'd been looking through 15 meters of shadowy material.

oops.

Well either way, it's hard

And that's assuming the fiber optic cable is straight. I imagine the refractive properties of an astral shadow on whatever mana-stuff allows people to sense things on the astral plane leave much to be desired.

So I assume you guys assign a -1 penalty to a mage wearing glasses if they don't remove them before switching to astral perception? And based on my undestanding you can't astrally perceive through mage goggles?

The aura and therefore also astral perception extends slightly beyond the physical body.

Otherwise, mages would indeed have to take their glasses of and full-body armor or even clothing that covers the entire body would be an effective shielding from magic.

Mage sight goggles also allow astral perception, just not through the cable.
But you can see beyond the goggles.

Thanks for the clairification.