Western U.S. To Get Mooned

A dazzling solar eclipse will be on display across the western part of the globe Tuesday night.

The best viewing will be a broad swath of the United States, Mexico, Canada and Asia on Monday, with as much as 99 percent of the sun obscured by the moon.

One of the best U.S. views will be in San Diego where as much as three-fourths of the sun will be hidden.

The Eastern Seaboard will miss the eclipse entirely because it will occur after sunset.

Experts warn against looking directly at the sun during an eclipse. They recommend solar filters, which block all but a fraction of the sun's light. Viewers also can use binoculars, not to look through, but to project the sun's image onto an index card.

The early evening event is called an annular, or ring-shaped, eclipse. Because the moon will be farther from the Earth than during total eclipses, it will only partially cover the distant sun. It will be the last eclipse visible from the United States until 2005.