Caution needed when viewing annular eclipse

It's never a good idea to look directly at the sun, and today's annular eclipse is no exception. You can cause real and permanent damage to your eyes without the proper protection.

That doesn't mean regular sunglasses, either. You need dark-filtered glasses such as No. 14 welder's goggles or a specially filtered camera or telescope.

The safest way to "watch" a solar eclipse is indirectly using a pinhole to form an image of the sun on a screen placed a few feet behind the opening.

This can be done using a piece of cardboard with a tiny hole in it, a loosely woven straw hat, or even interlaced fingers to cast a pattern of solar images on the screen.

Or better yet on a hot afternoon in Las Vegas, seek out a broad-leafed tree in the sunshine and look at the ground beneath it.

The many "pinholes" formed by overlapping leaves will create hundreds of images of the moon crossing in front of the sun.

The Las Vegas Astronomical Society has an animation on its website (lvastronomy.com) showing what the eclipse will look like through a filtered telescope in Las Vegas and at Cathedral Gorge State Park, near the center line of the moon's shadow.