Photo by: Robin Scholz/The News-Gazette

University of Illinois Professor Joaquin Vieira is leaving Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017, for Goreville in Southern Illinois, where he and his sons will camp out and catch Monday's total solar eclipse.

URBANA If you want to brush up on your solar-eclipse facts and maybe pick up a pair of eclipse glasses here's your chance.

The ongoing "Astronomy on Tap" informational series continues today with a session devoted to Monday's big event.

It's scheduled for 6 to 7 p.m. at Pizza M, 208 W. Main St., U.

The University of Illinois Department of Astronomy launched the monthly series in 2016 to answer big questions about the universe and share scientific discoveries with the public in a fun way a conversation with beer, not a lecture, as Professor Joaquin Vieira puts it.

The venue holds about 100 people, and the department will have free eclipse glasses to hand out to folks who want to watch it on Monday, Vieira said.

Vieira and most of his colleagues in the department will be in Goreville, in southern Illinois, on Monday afternoon, one of the best places to view the eclipse. He's leaving Sunday and camping there with his sons.

"I've never seen one," Vieira said Wednesday. "I'm really excited. It's going to be a very poignant and powerful demonstration of our place in the cosmos."

He watched a total lunar eclipse a few years ago, and even that was more powerful than he anticipated.

"You realize we are just a little rock floating in space, going around a giant ball of gas, with another rock going around us," he said. "You get that feeling, 'OK, we're out here, too. We're part of the cosmos.'"

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Eclipse on the menu at next 'Astronomy on Tap' - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette