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- Presentations are Sat & Sun at 1:30 throughout the year.
- Additional presentations daily during July & August
- $5/person
- Not recommended for children younger than 5
- Seating is limited; please call ahead to reserve your place. Groups of 10 or more must confirm tickets in advance.
- Please arrive at least 15 minutes in advance to claim any reserved tickets.
The Lyman Spitzer Jr. Planetarium is named for the astrophysicist who was the driving force behind the development of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Mark Breen, Planetarium Director says, “Imagination seems to be our only limit.” He describes what’s in store for visitors, “The new Kappa System from Digitarium takes advantage of developing digital technology to offer a wide-ranging experience, from the night sky as we see it to graphically enhanced explanations of what we see, and easily transitions through location and time. We can show the latest Hubble Space Telescope images, and also pin-point their location in the skies. We'll be able to zoom in for a close look at any planet. We can watch the North Star change through the ages. We can turn the clock forward and backwards, and then return home with just a touch of a button.
Lyman Spitzer Jr. was a member of the Canaday family, and this exciting dimension to exploring our universe at the Fairbanks Museum is possible through a grant from The Canaday Family Charitable Trust.
Visitors to the new planetarium will get ready for their tour of the galaxy in the Vinton Space Science Gallery, supported by a generous gift from St. Johnsbury residents Ruth and Drury Vinton. In this new gallery, photographs taken by the Hubble Space Telescope invite imaginary journeys through our universe and beyond.
The Vinton Gallery also holds a meteorite – just acquired by the Museum – made of iron and nickel and weighing 17.3 pounds. This meteorite is believed to have fallen 4000 to 5000 years ago in northern Argentina, part of the largest meteorite known to have crashed to Earth.
The planetarium dome was cut into place in 1961 by a team of high school students from Danville and a group of Junior Curators, including Art Brooks, the current Chair of the Museum’s Board of Trustees. This space was originally designed as a gallery, and the historic building posed challenges to the work of refitting it today, as Gobin points out, “Everything, from the console, to seating, and door swings have to allow for comfort and codes in an area that was designed for an entirely different use when this historic building was originally conceived.”
Digital images captured at the Northern Skies Observatory operated by the Northeast Kingdom Astronomy Foundation in Peacham, VT will become available in the planetarium to reveal, the never-ending night sky spectacle visible from right here in the Northeast Kingdom. As a member of the NASA Museum Alliance, the Museum will have access to a wealth of images, best practices in space science education, and late-breaking astronomy phenomena.
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Current Conditions
06/20/13 8:36 AM
St. Johnsbury, VT
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High pressure overhead gave us a clear and chilly night. As it moves east, sunny and warmer weather today. A weakening cold front approaches from the north tonight, with a few clouds north.
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