Nights with a heavenly view

From Laura Bly in USA Today:

Chaco Culture National Historical Park, N.M. — Several years ago, a woman approached the visitors center desk at this remote Southwestern outpost, eager to report that she had spotted something remarkable the evening before.

Bracing for another overwrought tale of alien UFOs, park ranger and amateur astronomer G.B. Cornucopia listened politely as the bedazzled tourist described a “lane of white powder” spanning the heavens above her campsite.

“It was my great joy,” Cornucopia says, “to tell her that for the first time in her life she had actually seen the Milky Way.”

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One of the best-known portals to New Mexico’s nighttime marvels is Chaco Canyon, eerie, windswept desert ruins about midway between Grants and Farmington (or the proverbial Middle of Nowhere).

Chaco began offering astronomy programs in 1991 and opened its own observatory — the only one in a national park — seven years later. Park managers have designated Chaco’s night sky a critical resource in need of protection, and they have retrofitted all park lighting to enhance after-dark viewing and reduce light pollution from cities as far afield as Albuquerque, about 150 miles to the southeast.

Today, about 14,000 self-sufficient visitors a year come to gaze and graze on ancient tales.

Link via Ah, Wilderness!

NewMexiKen visited Chaco last autumn and posted some photos.