The story behind Megantic Sky

How it started

I started stargazing back home in Lebanon, and I got hooked. The night sky changes almost every day — no two nights are the same — and I wanted more people to experience that. That's why I created Zenderfull.

In 2021, I bought a house right below Mont Saint-Joseph, next to Mont-Mégantic National Park — home to one of the best-protected skies in Québec, at the heart of the world's first International Dark Sky Reserve. Since then I've led countless tours from here, hosted events, and opened my own house so guests could sleep under the stars.

Chalet Zenderfull at night, its windows lit, under the Milky Way

A spark from the Planétarium

I've also always loved planetariums and dome shows, and for years I stayed close to the Montréal Planetarium, wondering how we might work together. Eventually the idea clicked: what if one of their cameras could live-stream the sky from Mégantic?

That's how Megantic Sky started taking shape in 2025 — and finally came to life in 2026.

The whole sky over Chalet Zenderfull, with the Milky Way and SkyWatch's coordinate grid — November 4, 2026, 6:10 p.m.: the Milky Way, with SkyWatch's sky-coordinate grid on top

How it works

The camera takes photos all night long. Each night, those photos are compiled into a timelapse video you can browse in the Archives. All of it — the live view and the archive — is free for everyone.

A live YouTube channel is coming soon too.

The camera

The camera sits on a mast above Chalet Zenderfull, our chalet in Val-Racine, inside the Mont-Mégantic International Dark Sky Reserve. It is not in Mont-Mégantic National Park or at the observatory: the chalet is on private land next to the park, and you can rent it to sleep right under the camera. Its fisheye lens sees the whole sky at once, and a small computer in the chalet runs it and sends every new photo to this website.

Camera: OMEA all-sky camera by Alcor System
Sensor: ZWO ASI183MC Pro: cooled 1-inch Sony IMX183 colour sensor, 20 megapixels
Lens: Fisheye: the whole sky, horizon to horizon, in one image
Photos: All night, from shortly before sunset to shortly after sunrise
Exposure: Up to 15 seconds, adjusted automatically to the sky’s brightness
Image size: 3986 × 3672 pixels; shown here at up to 1080p
Software: SkyWatch, on a small computer in the chalet
Location: Chalet Zenderfull, Val-Racine, Québec, 546 m above sea level (not in the national park)

The camera, tested on the deck in October 2026

Its home: a mast above Chalet Zenderfull

Support the project

Using this content commercially? If you're a media outlet or organization looking to license our footage, reach out to Zenderfull at [email protected].

Want to support the project? We gladly accept donations. Every cost — hosting, development, maintenance, and installing the camera itself — is currently covered by Zenderfull. A huge thank-you to the Montréal Planetarium for providing the camera that makes all of this possible.

Thank you

Megantic Sky wouldn't exist without the help of:

Montréal Planetarium, for providing the camera
Serge Duplantis, for his help installing the camera
Olivier Hernandez, for his help acquiring and testing the camera