(CNN) — The cosmos will cast an afternoon delight over the country on Thursday with a partial solar eclipse. The moon will clip the sun, making it look li...

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(CNN) — The cosmos will cast an afternoon delight over the country on Thursday with a partial solar eclipse.

The moon will clip the sun, making it look like a fingernail as it sets in the west for most of the country and Canada.

The show will reach its height between 5:45 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. ET, NASA says, meaning the Eastern half of the country should get a view before the backdrop of golden twilight hues.

People living in the Central Time zone will have the best view, NASA says. New England and Hawaii will unfortunately miss out on this one.

The eclipse should last for over two hours.

Watch live on the web

Coca Cola Space Science Center – Columbus State University’s live webcast will start at 5 p.m. EDT.

Griffith Observatory — In addition to hosting a free public viewing of the eclipse, the Griffith Observatory in L.A., California, will also provide online streaming of the event from 5:07 p.m. EDT (eclipse starts) to 7:39 p.m. EDT (eclipse ends). Eclipse max for the location is 6:27 p.m. EDT.

Lupica Observatory – Live from Celestron’s Joseph A. Lupica Jr. Observatory in Torrance, CA, Focus Astronomy will provide a live video feed of today’s partial solar eclipse.

McMath-Pierce Solar Telescope – This webcast comes live from a National Solar Observatory telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona.

SkyCenter – University of Arizona’s SkyCenter will carry live images of the eclipse. These images are acquired and processed before posting online, so weather-permitting, you can look forward to some gorgeous shots!

Slooh — The community observatory will host a free, live event starting at 5 p.m. EDT.

Southern Connecticut State University – The Department of Physics and Astronomy will host a live webcast, set to start at 3 p.m. EDT according to their countdown clock. A free public-viewing event will also be held in the SCSU Planetarium.

You can also watch the solar eclipse webcast at Space.com. Other webcast feeds are expected by the University of Arizona’s SkyCenter at Mount Lemmon. [Solar Eclipse of October 2014: Visibility Maps]

Protect your eyes (if you are lucky enough to see the eclipse in person)

While enjoying the view, protect your eyes, NASA says: “Don’t stare. Even at maximum eclipse, a sliver of sun peeking out from behind the Moon can still cause pain and eye damage. Direct viewing should only be attempted with the aid of a safe solar filter.”

There are some old tricks to viewing indirectly, like punching a hole in cardboard and projecting the light seeping through it onto a surface away from the sun.

Or let a tree do the work for you.

“Overlapping leaves create a myriad of natural little pinhole cameras, each one casting an image of the crescent-sun onto the ground beneath the canopy,” NASA says.