Showtimes: 7:00pm, 8:10pm, 9:15pm

While astronomers can understand how galaxies grow and evolve by looking out into the cosmos, the history of our own Milky Way is something of a mystery. Our solar system’s position, embedded in the disk of the Milky Way, makes it difficult to understand how our Galaxy is changing on large scales. In this month’s AstroTour, Natalie Price-Jones will explain how astronomers use measurements of nearby stars to extrapolate a complete picture of the Galaxy.

Due to inclement weather, the February 6 public lecture and webcast with Clifford Johnson has been postponed to February 7 at 7:00 pm ET. The webcast will be streamed live at this time.

Forty years ago, the Toronto Centre mounted an expedition to observe the February 26, 1979 total solar eclipse from Gimli, Manitoba. Before organized tours to see eclipses were readily available, the Toronto Centre organized their own trip - with two chartered aircraft which left early eclipse morning and returned to Toronto later that day. The trip organizer, Michael Watson will review the circumstances of the eclipse and the efforts required to organize the expedition. A slide/audio presentation of the day trip was produced back in 1979.

Showtimes: 7:00pm, 8:10pm

Showtimes: 7:00pm, 8:10pm, 9:15pm

Showtimes: 7:00pm, 8:10pm, 9:15pm

http://www.rocklandastronomy.com/neaf.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy_Day

Solar System Social is a space-themed speaker series that brings exciting ideas and research from the field of planetary science to the general public.