Summer 2020 evenings will feature Jupiter and Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and Mars, too! We'll preview how to view those planets, what features on them to look for, and some observing tips.

Join us at West Commons at Ontario Place on Thursday, August 27 for an outdoor screening of Picture a Scientist, a compelling documentary. Science is full of brilliant minds and unique perspectives. But what happens when some minds are valued more than others, some voices silenced? Picture a Scientist explores how sexism and racism shape the experiences of women, including women of colour, in science.

Cam Wipper, telescope operator and scientific observer at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Growing up in Nanaimo, Cam never imagined he would be spend nearly a decade (and counting) living in Hawai’i and working on Maunakea, the best place on Earth for astronomical observations.

We'll help you get started in visual astronomy by explaining the basics - how to use a sky chart, how sky coordinates work (spoiler alert - it's easy), what's a variable star, how to tell a galaxy from globular cluster, and more.

Mars and the Moon are getting close this week! Once you spot those in the next couple days, we'll be on the hunt for a little bit of everything, and a lot of double stars.

Struggling to set up your telescope? Can’t see Jupiter as clearly as you want to? We’ll set up our scopes to show you exactly what we do each time, give you some tips to make your telescope observing sessions even better, and recommend some gadgets and accessories.

Professional astronomy has long since moved past the telescopes of Kepler and Galileo. How do the massive astronomical instruments you see in the news work, and how are they designed? To find out more, join us online on Wednesday, September 30 at 6:00pm. Prof. Abigail T. Crites will be taking us step-by-step as she deconstructs the astrophysicists' toolbox! As always, everyone is welcome!

It's a great week for some planetary observing! Mars is at opposition, which means it'll be big and bright and beautiful as we come between it and the Sun.

In elegant and humorous prose which makes her book highly engaging and readable, theoretical astrophysicist, Dr Katie Mack, makes clear almost immediately where her story will end: with the end. Of Everything. It’s not a plot twist that’s wholly unexpected, but there’s more: fire. That’s going to be the element that is finally our grand undoing (the “we” is rhetorical - human life will long have been extinguished), white hot fire from the swollen sun like nothing we can imagine.

Today’s the day! Mars is at its closest approach to Earth, making it the biggest and brightest it will be for another 15 years!