You'll be able to view the 2017 solar eclipse from anywhere in the US

The Aug. 21 total solar eclipse will cross the continental U.S. from Oregon to South Carolina; a partial eclipse will be visible from most of North America. Wherever you are, Eclipse Safari can help you make the most of this skywatching opportunity by letting you know exactly when the eclipse will start in your location, how long it will last and when it will end.

A swath of the U.S. 70 miles wide will have a chance to see the moon completely block out the sun in August.Here's how to find out if you hit the jackpot. But say you can't make it to that band, or say you do and it's cloudy - is all hope lost?

Only that narrow totality band will get the ultimate solar eclipse experience of seeing the moon block out all but the outermost layer of the sun.

A lot of astronomy buffs are downplaying the partial solar eclipsein a bid to try to encourage people to go see the real deal.

But not everyone can drop everything and travel hundreds of miles on a Monday afternoon, so let's stop writing off the rest of the country.

Everywhere in the U.S. (even Alaska and Hawaii) will experience a partial solar eclipse, when part of the moon will block out part of the sun. This is more common than a total solar eclipse, but it's nothing to sniff at if this is your first eclipse.

What is a total solar eclipse?

A total solar eclipse occurs when the disk of the moon appears to completely cover the disk of the sun in the sky. The fact that total solar eclipses occur at all is a quirk of cosmic geometry. The moon orbits an average of 239,000 miles (385,000 kilometers) from Earth — just the right distance to seem the same size in the sky as the much-larger sun. However, these heavenly bodies line up only about once every 18 months.

Outside the path of totality, skywatchers in the continental U.S. and other nearby areas will see a partial solar eclipse, in which the moon appears to take a bite out of the sun's disk. Two to five solar eclipses occur each year on average, but total solar eclipses happen just once every 18 months or so.