DALLAS ¯ The partial solar eclipse of Christmas morning probably won't inspire as much excitement as an after-holiday sale on scooters. And that's as it should be, scientists say. "This upcoming eclipse will not be megaspectacular," said Bradley Schaefer, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin. "It's just one of those interesting things." Check the sky to see if weather will permit a good view of the eclipse in early to mid-morning. Forecasts are for mostly sunny skies in Northwest Georgia today. Try looking for the spectacle sometime around maximum eclipse when the moon will cover about one-third of the sun. The eclipse should be visible in Atlanta at 12:25 p.m. with 32 percent of the sun obscured. "It's a fun thing that kids can go out and look at," said Schaefer. Don't look directly at the sun, astronomers say; wear eclipse glasses or watch the eclipse indirectly by projecting the sun's image through a small hole (see accompanying box for viewing tips). An eclipse's more profound importance, Schaefer said, is that "it shows man's place in the cosmos. It shows the sun is farther away than the moon." In fact, the sun is almost exactly 400 times farther away from Earth than the moon is; but the moon is almost exactly 400 times smaller than the sun. That odd coincidence is what permits total solar eclipses to happen at all, as the apparent size of the sun and the moon in the sky are virtually identical