The Pacific Planetarium Association (PPA) is a non-profit organization with members mostly from planetariums in the western states of Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Washington.
Our mission is to facilitate communication and cooperation among members of the planetarium community to help them provide the very best services to their respective communities in science literacy, arts & humanities awareness, and understanding of our universe.
2025 Planetarians' Zoom Seminars (PZSs) are usually on the last Friday of the month. They are recorded and archived on the Seminar Archive page. For connection URL, see the Seminar Connection page. See Seminar Schedule page for full descriptions.
2025 Jul 25 at 2pm PDT (5pm EDT, 21:00 UT). Planetarium Educators Workshop I. Alan Gould, member of the International Planetarium Society (IPS) Education Committee and Director Emeritus of the Lawrence Hall of Science Planetarium, is organizing this workshop series. Focus for this first session will be Module 1, Communication, including exactly how instructor-student communication can lead to more rewarding outcomes than presenter-lectures. Bonus topic: strategies for getting funding, revenue, and financial stability for your planetarium.
See recordings of past Planetarians' Zoom Seminar on the Seminar Archive page. Latest: Free Choice Learning - Motivation and Audience Engagement with Emily Peavy
NASA Resource Page for Planetariums - updated 03/14/23
The Pointer, a PPA magazine published from 1968 t0 1970, will be appearing on this site's Publications page. The first six issues are available now.
You can now make DONATIONS to PPA. See below.
You may support PPA projects, including the Mini Grant program, by contributing with credit card, debit card, or Paypal using this Donate button:
Alternatively, send a check made out to Pacific Planetarium Association to Alan Gould, PPA Treasurer, 1256 Spruce St, Berkeley CA 94709 .
To become a PPA member, see the PPA Membership page.
The Pacific Planetarium Association pay tribute to the lives and legacies of dear members who have passed on, but remain with us in memory: Don Warren (1999), Charles Hagar (2013), Lonny Baker (2015), Dale Etheridge (2019), Mike Bennett (2021), and Steve Craig (2021).
PPA is an affiliate of the International Planetarium Society. Recordings of recent IPS virtual conferences are on the IPS youtube channel.
PPA is also one of the associations in the Western Alliance Conference of Planetarium Associations (WAC—Western Alliance Conference).
PPA youtube channel: youtube.com/@ppadomes