Where to go stargazing in and around Montréal
2024 was a banger of a year for celestial events in Montréal. We saw a total solar eclipse in April, aurora borealis in May, and a comet graced our light-polluted skies in October.
Looking for some darker skies? Want to learn more about the night sky?
In this guide, we’ll show you some places inside Montréal with a slightly darker view. Then we’ll show you some astronomy clubs with organized events and a few places outside the city away from the light pollution. Finally, we’ll teach you how to know if a place you’re planning to go to will have a sky full of stars.
Inside the City
The biggest hurdle to seeing lots of stars is to get away from light pollution. But if you can’t get outside the city, here are two options you can get to by public transportation:
Belvédère Outremont
This gem of Montréal is the perfect sunset spot looking towards the West. Once it gets dark, the Belvédère Outremont serves as a not-too-bad view of the night sky. Because it’s above the city streetlights and looking West away from Montréal’s bright downtown, you might surprise yourself with how many stars you can spot here.
Parc Frédéric-Back
Once a quarry, then a landfill, Parc Frédéric-Back is now one of the largest urban parks in Montréal. With wide open fields, few streetlamps, and a fair distance from downtown Montréal, this park can serve up some fair stargazing.
To add to the spacey feel? Dotted throughout the park are glow-in-the spheres (meant for biogas collection).
Astronomy Clubs
If you’re new to stargazing, one of the best ways is to learn from passionate enthusiasts at astronomy clubs. Here you can learn about the night sky, how to use telescopes, and a lot more.
Dark Sky Spots
Mont-Tremblant
A two-hour drive north of Montréal holds the National Park of Mont-Tremblant. You can spend the night under the park’s starry sky at Lac-des-Sables and Lac-Escalier. You can learn more about Mont-Tremblant’s sky here.
Au Diable Vert
A two-hour drive southeast of Montreal is Au Diable Vert. This area offers year-round lodging, hiking, and more. For stargazers, this is place is a jewel: it resides in a certified dark sky preserve, and is possibly some of the best skies with nearby amenities.
During the summertime, Au Diable Vert has an outdoor amphitheatre with a 1-hour show called Observetoiles teaching you about the night sky.
Light Pollution Map
Planning on booking a chalet outside of the city, and want to know if it’s in dark skies? This map shows you what the light pollution will be like for locations worldwide.
The white and red areas mean it’s quite light-polluted. Aim to get to yellow, green, blue, or black areas to see more stars, meteors, and aurora borealis.
Accounts to Follow
Through 2025, it’s expected we’ll get more outbursts of aurora borealis visible in dark skies near Montréal. Because of the sporadic nature of aurora, I recommend following a few local accounts that frequently update when they are expected to occur.
Trevor Kjorlien
Trevor Kjorlien is a space educator living in Montréal. He does mobile planetarium shows, workshops, and presentations teaching about space, astronomy and what we can see in the urban night sky with his one-person company, Plateau Astro. He is a recurring guest and contributor to CBC, CTV, Global, and other Montréal news media.