Come to our Comet Party to observe 46P/Wirtanen through our telescopes and binoculars. 46P/Wirtanen is the brightest comet we are likely to see for the next 20 years! We will hold the Comet Party on the first clear evening of the December 14-16 weekend at the Iroquois Park Sports Centre in Whitby Check our website on those days for our GO/NO-GO decision. The Sports Centre is adjacent to the Whitby GO Station, making it easy to get there from Toronto without driving. If driving, there is ample free parking at Iroquois Park itself.

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

The Geminids are a meteor shower caused by the object 3200 Phaethon, which is thought to be a Palladian asteroid with a "rock comet" orbit. This would make the Geminids, together with the Quadrantids, the only major meteor showers not originating from a comet. The meteors from this shower are slow moving, can be seen in December and usually peak around December 13–14, with the date of highest intensity being the morning of December 14.

Comet 46P/Wirtanen expected to brighten to magnitude 3 (clearly visible in dark skies).

Watch the recorded video: https://youtu.be/Gz7TVQkTGCM

Hover above the moon like an astronaut and get eye-to-eye with the planets. Find colourful stars, star clusters, bright nebulae and even another galaxy. Our monthly City Star Party is the place to catch universe from within the city limits at Bayview Village Park. If you don't have a telescope then you will find many astronomers who would love to share a view. If you are thinking of buying a telescope, viewing with other people's equipment is the best way to make a good choice. If you have a telescope or binoculars, please bring it!

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

December 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of the famous Apollo 8 Moon mission. Andy Chaikin will share stories from the historic mission including anecdotes from his interviews with the 3 Apollo 8 astronauts, and details on the mission’s origins and aftermath from his own in-depth research.

Cold gas giant planets with long orbital periods make up half of the planets in our Solar System, yet we have observed only a handful of similar exoplanets around other stars. Is this due to the limitations set by our observation methods, or are cold giants truly rare in nature? In this talk, Miranda Herman  will explore the difficulties associated with finding such exoplanets, describe her efforts to increase the number of known cold giants, and discuss how they can inform us about the population of exoplanets as a whole.

Several space agencies have launched orbital missions over several decades, and the volume of data and imagery they have acquired is staggering. The unprecedented level of detail available has allowed scientists and engineers alike to explore surfaces well beyond Earth. Join Dr. Bhairavi Shankar as she highlights the findings and explores how and why we investigate planetary surfaces.

One of the primary goals of NASA’s landmark Kepler Space Telescope Mission, which launched in 2009, is to identify “Goldilocks” planets beyond our solar system — that is, planets orbiting other stars in our Galaxy that are just right, “neither too hot nor too cold," for hosting life as we know it.

See the milky way and galaxies with the unaided eye. Point your telescope to find the many dim deep space objects that sprinkle the sky. Away from Toronto's light polution, there is so much to see. We observe from the Long Sault Conservation area, an hour outside of Toronto. We meet around dusk once a month in the parking lot for views only seen in dark sky conditions. We hold this event on the first clear night of our week-long window, so the date and time are determined closer to.