Plan Your Visit
Explore artifacts and natural history, learn with hands-on activities, delve into active research and astronomy, or enjoy a show in Idaho's largest planetarium.
Upcoming Events
Peak Pluto in 2026
📅 Friday, July 24th | ⏰ 1:45 - 2:15 a.m. | Free Admission
Don’t miss a truly rare celestial opportunity to see Pluto at its brightest and closest for the year!
Through our telescopes, you’ll be able to glimpse this distant dwarf planet, currently 3,211,620,000 miles (5.17 billion km) away, at a proximity it won’t reach again until January 2202. Despite its incredible distance, Pluto will appear as a tiny but brilliant point of light, offering a unique perspective on the outer reaches of our solar system.
Weather permitting. Clear skies are required for viewing.
Summer Solar Session
📅 Wednesday, July 29th | ⏰ 1:30 - 3:30 p.m. | Free Admission
Experience the power of the cosmos—right in the daytime sky!
Safely observe the Sun through specially filtered telescopes and witness real sunspots along with the dynamic details of the solar atmosphere. Then look beyond our star to spot:
- Gibbous (57% illuminated) Venus
- Bright stars visible in our 24" telescope
Weather permitting. Clear skies are required for viewing.
Reptile Revue
1st & 3rd Tuesdays | 6 PM – 7 PM | FREE
Get up close and personal with some of the coolest cold-blooded residents of the Herrett Center! Reptile Revue happens twice a month and gives you the chance to meet our fascinating reptiles, learn fun facts, and even interact with them in a safe and educational setting.
Upcoming Reptile Revue Events:
August 4th and August 18th
September 1st and September 15th
A Place for Pluto Story Time
📅 Friday, August 7th | ⏰ 5:00 p.m. | $10 + tax
Visit the Herrett Center on August 7th at 5:00 PM for a fun story time! We will be reading "A Place for Pluto" by Stef Wade for the 20th anniversary of Pluto being named a Dwarf Planet.
After the story, we will have activities for the kiddos, including building your own planet, space blobs, and more! These activities are included in your registration.
The cost to participate is $10. Please register by August 1st! This story is best suited for kiddos ages 5-8.
Hope to see you there!
Monthly Free Star Party
📅 Friday, August 8th | ⏰ 9:45 - 11:45 p.m. | Free Admission
Join us in the Centennial Observatory for our Monthly Free Star Party and your chance to see:
- Double/multiple stars
- Deep-sky targets (after 10:42 PM)
- A moonless sky
Weather permitting. Clear skies are required for viewing.
Deep Partial Lunar Eclipse
📅 Thursday, August 27th | ⏰ 8:00 p.m. - 11:59 p.m. | Free Admission
Join us for a special evening at the observatory to watch a partial lunar eclipse as Earth’s shadow gradually moves across the Moon. The event begins with the Moon already showing subtle dimming from Earth’s outer shadow, followed by the dramatic appearance of the darker central shadow creating a visible “bite” out of the lunar surface. At maximum eclipse, only a thin bright sliver of the Moon remains illuminated before the shadow slowly recedes. The observatory will remain open until midnight as the eclipse winds down and the Moon gradually returns to its usual brightness.
Eclipse Timeline
- 8:12 PM – Moon rises with faint shading from Earth’s penumbral shadow already visible.
- 8:34 PM – Partial eclipse begins as Earth’s darker umbral shadow creates a small “bite” on the Moon’s lower left edge.
- 10:13 PM – Maximum eclipse: only a thin bright sliver of the Moon’s upper edge remains illuminated.
- 11:52 PM – Partial phase ends as the last shadow slips off the Moon’s lower right edge.
- 12:00 AM – Observatory closes; faint penumbral shading still visible.
- 1:02 AM – Official end of the penumbral eclipse as the Moon returns to its normal brightness.
Visitors are welcome to stop by anytime during the event to watch the eclipse progress through telescopes and with the naked eye.
Weather permitting. Clear skies are required for viewing.
Field Trips and Group Tours
Field trips and educational group events are welcome! Choose from our tour options or request a custom theme when you book a field trip.
Accessibility
The Herrett Center for Arts & Science is committed to making our collections, building, programing, and services accessible to all audiences.
Open Caption is available for most Faulkner Planetarium Shows. To request this service, please let the cashier at the front desk know when purchasing tickets.
The Centennial Observatory features one of the world’s largest fully wheelchair-accessible public telescopes. An elevator takes visitors up to the observatory space, once there, a wheelchair elevator is available to take visitors with limited mobility to the observatory deck. The ARE-125, an optical “periscope” designed by DFM, allows unprecedented access to the telescope for wheelchair-bound or limited-mobility visitors.
For questions concerning accessibility prior to your visit, please call the Herrett Center front desk at 208-732-6655.
Inside Map of the Herrett Center
