Everyone is invited to join us and Durham Skies on July 21 for stargazing at the edge of Lake Ontario. Take a free look through different kinds of telescopes (including solar-filtered scopes) to get close-up looks at sunspots, craters on the Moon, brilliant Venus, rosy Mars, giant Jupiter, and Saturn with its rings. Peer deep into space and try your hand at spotting faint star clusters and nebulae. You can even bring your own telescope along and we'll give you expert advice on how to use it better.

Join us in the gallery at 7:00pm for informal talks by artists about their work. Follow us outside to Lisgar Park across the street when it gets dark - where members of the RASC and York University will set up telescopes.

In this talk, Prof. Roberto Abraham will will try to give you a "cosmic perspective," by describing what we know about the nature of the Universe and your place in it. He will certainly find excuses to show pictures of pretty galaxies and will talk about the impending launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, which is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, and which is going to be insanely great.

Explore the universe with members of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Telescopes will be set up to give you amazing views of the Moon, the planets and more! Meet at the Chappell House Lawn.

Come join the Allan I. Carswell team at York University to view Mars at opposition. Mars will appear brighter then it has been for 15 years and will not be this bright again until 2035! Starting at 9:00pm weeknights from July 25th to August 1st, we will be at the William Small Centre (top of the Arboretum) at York University's Keele Campus. Admission is free, and we will have multiple telescopes available for viewing! Hope to see you all there!

Supernovae are the most violent explosions in the universe, where the death of a star can release more light than an entire galaxy. But how does a supernova happen? What would happen if one happened in our own Milky Way? In this talk, Yvette Cendes will cover what causes a supernova event, and what they can tell us about how stars live and die in our universe. She will also discuss the human history of supernova observations, ranging from historic observations a thousand years ago to her present-day research involving radio signals from supernovae.

Embark on an expedition to determine whether a planet could support human life. Experience what it is like to be a space scientist or engineer and remotely operate an analogue rover in this simulated mission. Form a team of planetary scientists led by researchers from the Planetary Volatiles Laboratory at York University. Explore your mystery planet using instruments, like anemometers and Geiger counters, similar to those used on rover missions to Mars. Recommended ages: 8 and up

Come join the Allan I. Carswell team at York University to view Mars at opposition. Mars will appear brighter then it has been for 15 years and will not be this bright again until 2035! Starting at 9:00pm weeknights from July 25th to August 1st, we will be at the William Small Centre (top of the Arboretum) at York University's Keele Campus. Admission is free, and we will have multiple telescopes available for viewing! Hope to see you all there!

Let's explore High Park's amazing and mysterious bat populations and the astronomical wonders above us with the help of our new telescope!

When we observe the universe we see light from stars, gas and galaxies, but this makes up merely 4% of the universe. We think that a much larger fraction of the universe is made up of “dark matter,” which is invisible and only interacts through gravity. Dark matter is critical to how all the galaxies we see evolve, but the nature of dark matter is still a mystery. This talk tells the story of how the Dragonfly Telephoto Array, a compound-lens telescope with a revolutionary design that enables it to image faint, diffuse structures, is attempting to understand dark matter.