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!

MAX GOES TO THE MOON

Schedule:

Saturdays – 11 am
Sundays – 11 am

Max (the dog) and a young girl named Tori take the first trip to the Moon since the Apollo era. Along the way, the story sets the stage for the more sophisticated science of the “Big Kid Box” sidebars, which cover topics including “Phases of the Moon,” “Wings in Space?,” and “Frisbees and Curve Balls on the Moon” — all thoughtfully explained so that grownups and children can learn together about science. Toward the end, Max and Tori’s trip proves so inspiring to people back on Earth that all the nations of the world come together to build a great Moon colony from which “the beautiful views of Earth from the Moon made everyone realize that we all share a small and precious planet.”

THE SUN, OUR LIVING STAR

Saturdays at 2:00 pm
Sundays at 2:00 pm

The Sun has shone on our world for four and a half billion years. The light that warms our skin today has been felt by every person who has ever lived. It is our nearest star and our planet’s powerhouse, the source of the energy that drives our winds, our weather and all life.

The passage of the Sun’s fiery disc across the sky — day by day, month by month — was the only way to keep track of time for countless past civilizations. Don’t be fooled by the terminology; although it is a typical dwarf star, the Sun consumes 600 million tons of hydrogen each second and is 500 times as massive as all the planets combined.

Discover the secrets of our star in this planetarium show and experience never-before-seen images of the Sun’s violent surface in immersive fulldome format.