Open Houses

Open Houses typically take place on the second Saturday of every month*, at 7:00 from September-April and 8:00pm from May-August, in Ellis Hall on the Queen's Campus (58 University Ave).  Each month, a featured astronomer presents a hot topic in current astrophysics research followed by a tour of the Observatory facilities!
During the tour, visitors have a chance to look at the night sky using Observatory telescopes (weather permitting), learn about astro-particle research at the McDonald Institute and the history of physics at Queen's University. 
(*Sometimes we may depart from the regular schedule - sign up to our mailing list and follow us on social media to stay up to date with the events)

 

 

Upcoming Events

Becoming an Astronomer from the Comfort of Your Own Home

 

March9th24 Ananthan Open House

 

Join us for an Observatory Open House on Saturday March 9th at 7:30PM!

This month's featured speaker is Ananthan Karunakaran, Queen's PhD graduate and Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto.

Ananthan will explore how publicly available data sets make astronomy more accessible than ever before!

The presentation will be followed by a tour of our facilities, including the McDonald Institute Visitor Centre and viewing nearby and deep-sky celestial objects with our telescopes (weather permitting).

We hope to see you there!

This is event is free for all ages!

Check the Forecast Before you Arrive

clear sky chart

When reading the clear dark sky chart there is a 24h clock time along the top and each row gives useful information, the most important ones can be read as follows. The "Cloud Cover" row is white for cloudy and blue for clear. The "Darkness" row is white for daytime and dark blue for night time. The "Seeing" row is white for blurry skies and blue for clear skies.

Past Events

Feb10 Malcolm Park Open House

Jan20 Mayukh Bagchi Open House

Nov4 Dark Matter Day Aaron Vincent

Sept 16 Open House Parisa Nozari

Sept 16 Open House Parisa Nozari

Aug 19 Mark Richardson Open House

July 15 Sarah Sadavoy & Daryn Lehoux Open House

 

June 17 Chaitanya Khamar Open House

May 20 Emily Heit Open House

April 15 Veritasium Open House

Nik and Connor Poster

Joe Bramate "Exploding Stars and Dark Matter" January Open House Poster

Yilda December Open House

Laura November Open House

October RASC Open House

Sept Open House Nathalie Poster