Eclipse Event – a Date for your Diaries!

Here’s an invitation to people interested in astronomy to join staff from the Department of Physics at Maynooth University on Wednesday, August 12th 2026 from 5:30 pm to 8:30 pm for a special public celebration of one of the deepest solar eclipses visible from Ireland in decades. The next eclipse with > 90% obscuration of the Sun by the Moon won’t be seen again in Ireland until 2090, by which time I will have retired. Experience the eclipse safely through: eclipse viewing glasses solar telescopes live astronomy demonstrations List of Solar Talks during the evening: Dr. Emma Whelan – The Story of the Sun Dr. Joshuah Heath – The Quantum Sun Dr. Marcin Gradziel – (Electric) Power from the Sun. The good, the bad, and the glinty! Dr. Michelle McCrystall – The star of the show: How the Sun drives our climate Prof. Peter Coles – Einstein and the Eclipse Dr. Patrick Kavanagh – Will our Sun go Supernova? The evening will also include: an immersive astronomy show in our inflatable planetarium…