UCLA Planetarium

No, our planetarium dome only houses a projector to display the night sky, so unfortunately we are not able to organize such events.

Maybe! Weather (and schedule) permitting, the UCLA Undergraduate Astronomical Society organizes telescope viewing on the roof of the Math Sciences Building, next to the planetarium dome. Please reach out to them here with any questions about telescope viewing and their planned schedule.

Yes! The UCLA events office (http://uclaevents.com) handles filming requests for the planetarium. The group will have to contact the events office to arrange any filming projects. For any requests, we aren’t available to host promotional events or shoots that are primarily commercial in nature. We would be willing to consider filming requests for projects such as documentaries or interviews of professors. Our time limit is 4 hours for any particular event. We’ve had several requests for filming at the planetarium, and most haven’t panned out. The planetarium is a small space with a large projector taking up space, so it doesn’t give a lot of room for filming. Additionally, the stars in the planetarium do not show up very well in film. Successful filming projects have involved documentaries, photo shoots, or interviews with professors and scientists where our planetarium projector serves as the backdrop.

Great! Please send us an email at planet [at] astro.ucla.edu to be added to our volunteer mailing list.

Yes, and they are free! We have implemented a ticketing system for planetarium shows to make it easier for us to track attendance and for you to reserve a spot at an upcoming show. Tickets can be reserved from the link associated with a given show on our homepage. A small number of tickets will be made available in the day leading up to a public show (for reservations) and the remainder will be opened up in the hour leading up to the show (for those who would like to request their tickets upon arrival at the planetarium).

Public shows at the planetarium typically consist of two 30-minute segments: a presentation about some topic related to astronomy and a night sky show. The topic of the presentation varies with each week's show and the presentations are designed to be interesting and meaningful for anyone who comes to the planetarium! The content of the night sky show will vary by presenter, but will generally cover the currently visible stars, constellations, planets, and other astronomical phenomena.

To request a private show, please submit this form. Please note that the UCLA planetarium offers private shows only to educational groups, with a minimum party size of 15.

Our planetarium shows are suitable for most ages! However, in our past experience, students younger than about a first grade age have trouble paying attention to our shows and may have a difficult time in the dark planetarium setting. Because of this, we do not host private shows for groups below first grade and caution against bringing younger children to the public shows.