A partial eclipse of the sun's coming tomorrow, and it's getting plenty of attention, with many people planning to watch the event.

If you're one of them, a Portage la Prairie optometrist urges you to take steps to protect your eyes.

Braden Nicoll from Clarity Vision says there are serious consequences from looking at the eclipse with unprotected eyes.

"Anybody staring up at the sun, or looking up at the sun, it is quite painful," he says, "But with a solar eclipse, people are more willing to put up with a bit of discomfort. And then the resulting damage, in the end, can actually leave you blind in the central part of your vision. Kind of like looking at an object, with the centre whole missing."

Nicoll recommends you protect your eyes from the eclipse's harmful effects, and be careful what you use.

"We've been handing out some eclipse shades for the last little while," he says, "The Manitoba Association of Optometrists distributed a bunch to different offices. I can't speak about the other two offices in town, but we did just run out ourselves. The biggest thing that you need to do is to check that they meet requirements. And there's a number on them called ISO 12312-2."

Nicoll suggests checking the NASA website for other methods.

"It has the directions on how to make a pin-hole projector," he says, "And you're not going to be looking at the sun -- it's going be having the light going through a little hole, and projecting it onto the ground below you. It's one of the safer ways to watch the eclipse if you don't have those solar eclipse glasses."

The partial elcipse begins at 11:40 tomorrow morning, with the maximum eclipse at 12:57, then ending at 2:15.