On a first-come, first-served basis, visitors without access to transportation who wish to come to The Jasper Planetarium may take the Fairmont shuttle to our location at Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge (JPL) at no charge – please call the Fairmont at (780) 852-3301 to confirm if the shuttle is running when you wish to attend. If the shuttle is not running or for any of our other locations, you can call Caribou Cabs at (780) 931-2334 for transportation.

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At Jasper’s latitude, we get to see some sort of aurora every 3-4 days (not factoring in for cloud cover). Such displays can last for a few minutes or a few hours (contrary to popular belief, auroras can be visible any month of the year, as long as it is dark.)

Even if an aurora isn’t easily visible to the naked eye, it may still be possible to get a photo of a green glow on the horizon.

For more, check out our Astronomy Forecast page

We can predict the aurora up to 3 days in advance as 2-3 days is the approximate travel-time of the particles that erupt from the sun to cause auroras on earth.

While telescopes are not required to see the aurora, our team of astronomy and astrophotography guides offers expert knowledge and deep space viewing as the perfect activity to do while waiting to see if an aurora will appear.

For more, check out our Astronomy Forecast page

Weather in the Jasper Rockies can change every few minutes.

Typically, in a given week, we are able to see something through our telescopes at some point in the evening roughly 6 out of 7 nights each week.

For more, check out our Astronomy Forecast page.

We operate rain-or-shine, clear-or-cloudy, even when snowing. Because it is indoors, our planetarium is not affected by the weather.

While we do not need the sky to be completely clear to use our telescopes, we CAN NOT guarantee clear skies. We DO NOT provide refunds if skies are too cloudy, but we will offer a “rain check” to re-book for another date.

Our outdoor telescope experience is a learning opportunity with a variety of “weather-proof” activities AND telescope stargazing.

To ensure the magical experience of being in the planetarium is not interrupted by any wee-folk who need to leave due to being startled or upset in our dome theatre, our minimum age is 4 (no exceptions).

If you are traveling with any children under the age of 4, there are a few workarounds you can take advantage of:

For Planetarium Experience ONLY, have 1 parent/adult stay outside the dome with your young child (you can also do swaps where some adults go in the dome for one of our time-slots while the other adult goes in after they’ve ‘traded’ off with another adult to watch junior.

Come for our Planetarium & Telescope Experience and do the above, but all can participate in the Telescope Experience outside.

Make use of local service My Jasper Nanny (the official nanny service of Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge) to arrange child-care for those in your party under 4 years of age (must be arranged in advance – you will not have time to arrange this at the planetarium).

Unaccompanied minors (ages 17 and under) are not permitted in the planetarium without an adult who has purchased admission.

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