Centre Meeting - Live

Colin Haig, 1st Vice President of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, was interviewed May 23 on CTV News Channel about the new meteor shower tonight!

Please click on this link for the interview:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId=368755

Planning An Observing Session Plus A Surprise Shower !!!

Observing the night sky comes in two flavours. The first is the spur of the moment feeling of grabbing binoculars or a small scope as we fly out the door. Here we spend about 20 minutes looking at our favourite Messier or NGC objects as well as the moon or planets thus satisfying our need to observe photons. The other more involved task is planning a lengthily observing session either in the backyard or an out of town expedition. Lunar and planetary observing and photography do not need dark country skies.

Red Planet, Red Moon

The mighty lion makes itself visible as it climbs the sky on these April nights. The outline of the familiar beast is quite recognizable as related to the Big Dipper. The Dipper stars form a pot with a handle and if you were to drill a hole in the celestial pot, water would pour onto the back of Leo. The Lion’s front half is portrayed by a sickle or backwards question mark starting from the bright star Regulus. This star is about five times the size of our sun and about 160 times brighter.