On Monday, a solar eclipse will streak southwest to northeast across North America.

Though several hundreds of miles away from the path of totality, under ideal conditions Minnesota residents could still be treated to the celestial show of a partial eclipse, with as much as 70% of the sun covered by the moon.

Ideal conditions, however, might not be in the cards. The National Weather Service in Chanhassen’s forecast for Monday calls for mostly cloudy skies and a chance of rain.

The Twin Cities are predicted to have 74% obscuration of the sun. It will start around 1 p.m., reach maximum obscuration around 2:02 p.m. and last until approximately 3 p.m.

“Yeah, from what I can see, too, it does look like it might be cloudy that day, which is kind of a bummer,” said Tim Peabody, a science teacher and director of the Forestview Middle School Planetarium in Baxter, Minn.

But cloudy skies aren’t necessarily a bad thing, Peabody said.

“Light cloud cover actually wouldn’t be terrible because you would be able to see it,” he said. Thin clouds can act as a filter, he added, meaning you can notice the eclipse even without wearing special glasses.

“But if there’s either too much cloud cover or it’s too clear you really won’t notice much because the sun’s photosphere, that visible surface of the sun, is so bright even with it covered up at almost 70%, it’s still brighter than what our eyes are able to handle and see what’s going on.”

The total solar eclipse will begin over the South Pacific Ocean, NASA reported. The path of the eclipse continues from Mexico, entering the United States in Texas, and traveling through Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. Small parts of Tennessee and Michigan will also experience the total solar eclipse.The eclipse will enter Canada in southern Ontario and continue through Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Cape Breton. The eclipse will exit continental North America on the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

According to NASA, every contiguous state in the U.S., along with parts of Alaska and Hawaii, will witness at least a partial solar eclipse.

“Weather permitting, it’s going to be an incredible day, it’s gonna be a great day,” said Thaddeus LaCoursiere, production coordinator at the University of Minnesota Bell Museum and Whitney and Elizabeth MacMillan Planetarium. “I think no matter what, it’s going to be a really great experience, because it’s going to be something that everyone can enjoy just by going outside.”

Peabody plans to travel Monday to Carbondale, Illinois, to view the eclipse. In 2017, Peabody, former planetarium director Brian Wallace, and several others traveled to Nebraska and Wyoming to view a total solar eclipse .

“It is one of the neatest things you can experience. It truly is. It’s amazing,” Peabody said.

Monday’s solar eclipse should provide for better viewing than in 2017, which featured 2.5 minutes of totality.

“This one, because of the positioning of the moon, totality is going to last quite a bit longer. It’s going to be well over four minutes for a lot of the viewing if you’re near that center line,” Peabody said.

A downside, he said, is there are 31 million people living in the path of totality not to mention everyone who will be traveling to those areas to see it, meaning traffic jams across the country may be inevitable. Anyone traveling to see the eclipse in the path of totality needs to be prepared for that, he added.

“Be patient, take your time and be willing to wait it out a little bit,” Peabody said.

LaCoursiere, too, intends to travel for the eclipse. He’s either going to San Antonio, Texas, or Burlington, Vermont, depending on the weather at those locations.

“No matter what, it’s going to be an experience,” he said.

An experience that won’t happen again for quite some time, too. The next solar eclipse across the continental U.S. won’t happen until 2045, unless people are willing to travel for other events, Peabody said. LaCoursiere added the next total solar eclipse over Minnesota is happening Sept. 14, 2099.

“The opportunity like this, when we had one just seven years ago and now we have this one, it’s kind of a cool thing,” Peabody said. “Hopefully it’s brought to light a lot of cool things about science and astronomy. That’s the neat part of it.”

“It’s not a total but a partial eclipse, and we get to see this inverse. Many of us are used to seeing a crescent moon in the sky, but now we get a crescent sun caused by the moon covering it up,” LaCoursiere said. “I’m in the astronomy world so maybe I’m biased here, but it’s just so cool to see and to think about what we’re seeing.”

The second, and most important, piece of advice Peabody and LaCoursiere offer is to use proper protective eyewear to view the eclipse, or to view it indirectly with special in-hole viewers, which can be found online, or anything that has small holes in it to project the image on a piece of paper or on the ground.

“I’ve talked to groups about using a strainer or slotted spoon, or a tree is sometimes kind of cool, because as the eclipse happens and as the light filters through the tree, it will make all kinds of little tiny eclipses on the ground,” Peabody said.

Not taking precautions when trying to view the eclipse can cause devastating damage to the eyes, he added.