Planetarium
Witness South Central Pennsylvania’s largest Planetarium and immerse yourself in the cosmos!
With Spitz’s SciDome XD projection system, audiences can travel anywhere in extreme definition. Audiences are surrounded by visuals where our movie-like shows make you feel like your part of the show, including the sensation of flying on Earth or through the universe.
Whether it’s the night sky from Lancaster, Pa to Sydney, Australia to the moons of Jupiter or traveling to the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, you’ll see the universe in a whole new light, with the help of Starry Night Dome software.
Thanks to our 2015 Capital Campaign, our planetarium is no longer limited to astronomy and can now venture into the Earth Sciences. We can show you how the Arctic ice has changed over time, live locations of earthquakes, high definition satellite views of the Earth, and fly through the Grand Canyon with the assistance from The Layered Earth software.
Our expert staff of Planetarium Educators will be your guide, answer your questions, and personalize your experience. Be sure to see their own produced show, the Night Sky Tour, and see what’s currently visible while showcasing their own expertise and passion in astronomy!
BIG BIRD’S ADVENTURE
Suggested for children in Pre-K through 1st
Saturdays at 11:00 am
Sundays at 11:00 am
Join Sesame Street‘s Big Bird and Elmo as they explore the night sky with Hu Hu Zhu, a Muppet from the Chinese co-production of Sesame Street. Together, they take an imaginary trip from Sesame Street to the starry night sky of constellations and to the moon, where they discover how different it is from Earth.
PHANTOM OF THE UNIVERSE
Saturdays at 2:00 pm
Sundays at 2:00 pm
The show reveals the first hints of its existence through the eyes of Fritz Zwicky, the scientist who coined the term “dark matter.” It describes the astral choreography witnessed by Vera Rubin in the Andromeda galaxy and then plummets deep underground to see the most sensitive dark matter detector on Earth, housed in a former gold mine.
From there, it journeys across space and time to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, speeding alongside particles before they collide in visually stunning explosions of light and sound, while learning how scientists around the world are collaborating to track down the constituents of dark matter.
North Museum Science & Engineering Fair
Support innovative student scientists who are changing the world.