All our eclipse information pages can be found by selecting the “2024 Total Solar Eclipse” option from the menu bar above. The drop-down menu will let you navigate to a page on a specific topic.
Winter 2024 Public Viewings
We will once again schedule viewings every two weeks this semester, anticipating that at least half of the events will be cancelled by cloudy weather. We’re also switching our viewing night to a weekday evening (to work around the early building lock-up that happens on weekends).
The dates and times that we’ve scheduled are below. Note that the event times shift later as the dates get closer to the spring equinox (and that the times jump an hour later in March after Daylight Saving Time begins).
Thursday, February 1, 7:00-9:00 PMCANCELLED due to cloudy weatherThursday, February 15, 7:00-9:00 PMCANCELLED due to cloudy weatherThursday, February 29, 7:30-9:30 PMCANCELLED due to cloudy weatherThursday, March 14, 8:30-10:30 PMCANCELLED due to cloudy weatherThursday, March 28, 8:30-10:30 PMCANCELLED due to cloudy weather
In the event of cloudy weather, this post will be updated to indicate if an event is cancelled.
If you’re coming to our event, meet us in room 417 of Memorial Hall. We’ll have some astronomy activities and information for a variety of ages that you can peruse while you wait for your turn to go up to the observatory.
Accessibility: You can take an elevator up to room 417, but it is necessary to climb stairs from there up to the roof and into the observatory to reach the telescope.
Fall 2023 Public Viewings
This fall, we are going to try scheduling a viewing approximately every two weeks, with the expectation that cloudy weather will likely force us to cancel half of the events. We have used this strategy in recent years for our summer solar viewings with reasonable success; now we’ll see how it works with PEI fall weather!
- Saturday, November 4, 7:00-9:00 PM – a challenging viewing with patchy clouds, but 44 guests got to view Jupiter and its 4 largest moons.
Saturday, November 18, 6:30-8:30 PMCANCELLED (due to cloudy weather)Saturday, December 2, 6:30-8:30 PMCANCELLED (due to cloudy weather)Thursday, December 21 (the winter solstice), 6:00-8:00 PMCANCELLED (due to cloudy weather)
In the event of cloudy weather, this post will be updated to indicate if an event is cancelled.
If you’re coming to our event, meet us in room 417 of Memorial Hall. We’ll have some astronomy activities and information for a variety of ages that you can peruse while you wait for your turn to go up to the observatory.
Accessibility: You can take an elevator up to room 417, but it is necessary to climb stairs from there up to the roof and into the observatory to reach the telescope.
International Observe the Moon Night 2023 – CANCELLED
UPDATE (7:40am Oct 21): Due to the cloudy weather, this event has been cancelled.
Join people around the world viewing the moon on Saturday, October 21 by stopping by our observatory between 7:00 and 9:00 pm, where you can get an up-close view of our astronomical neighbour.
Come to Memorial Hall room 417 where Physics Department staff or local astronomy enthusiasts will greet you and direct you up to the observatory when it is your turn. There will be moon-themed activities for all ages while you wait.
If clouds block the view of the moon, this event will be cancelled. This post will be updated by 9:00am on October 21 in the event of a cancellation.
Accessibility: While you can take an elevator up to the 4th floor of Memorial Hall, it is necessary to be able to climb stairs to reach the roof and the observatory.
Solar Viewings – Summer 2023
We will be once again holding viewings of the sun with our solar telescopes this summer. We will hold events on the following dates (every second Tuesday) from 12:00-1:30pm.
July 11CANCELLED DUE TO CLOUDY WEATHER- July 25 – attended by over 40 people!
August 8CANCELLED DUE TO CLOUDY WEATHER- August 22 – attended by over 30 people, and the clouds mostly held off until the end of the event.
If it’s too cloudy to see the sun, then we will have to cancel the event. This post will be updated in the event of any cancellations.
We’re going to try something new this year. In addition to using our ground-based hydrogen-alpha telescope to view the sun’s atmosphere, we’re also going to make use of our new(ish) white-light solar filter for our observatory telescope. This means that visitors to our event will get to view the sun in two different ways and also get to go inside the rooftop Earl L. Wonnacott Observatory.
The meeting location for this event will be the grassy area between Memorial Hall and Robertson Library (see campus map below). There you’ll find one telescope set up and we’ll direct you on how to find your way to the observatory when space is available. (Due to the observatory’s small size, we have to control how many people can go into it at once.)
Accessibility: To reach our observatory, you must be able to climb stairs, because the building’s elevator can’t take people beyond the fourth floor, and the observatory is a storey above that. However, our ground-based telescope is accessible for people with limited mobility.