Observing sites

Where observers actually go.

Aperture buys you photons. Darkness buys you contrast — and no telescope you can afford will out-run a two-hour drive. These are the places experienced observers keep going back to, and the specific objects that justify the trip.

BORTLE 1The Milky Way rising over the silhouetted ridgeline of the Chisos Mountains in Big Bend National Park.NPS Photo

Big Bend

TX

The darkest measured sky in the lower 48, and almost nobody is there.

1,462 mBest: WinterExpedition trip
BORTLE 1The Milky Way arching over a rocky desert plain and distant ranges in Death Valley National Park.NPS

Death Valley

CA

A Bortle 1 sky three hours from Las Vegas, with nothing above you but dry air.

-58 mBest: WinterModerate trip
BORTLE 2Storm light over the Bryce amphitheatre: rain falling across the plateau behind, while low sun rakes the orange hoodoos in the foreground.Mandar Mulherkar

Bryce Canyon

UT

Eight thousand feet of dry Utah air, and rangers who run the telescopes.

2,408 mBest: SummerEasy trip
BORTLE 2The Milky Way standing over a dark treeline at Cherry Springs State Park, Pennsylvania.Haleyread23

Cherry Springs

PA

The eastern seaboard's only genuinely dark sky, and a field built for telescopes.

701 mBest: SummerModerate trip
BORTLE 2Star trails wheeling over the moonlit bulk of Maunakea, with the summit road and observatory lights visible.NOIRLab/AURA/NSF

Mauna Kea VIS

HI

Above the inversion layer, at the latitude that opens the southern sky.

2,804 mHard trip
BORTLE 3A long film exposure of circumpolar star trails wheeling around Polaris, shot from Anza-Borrego Desert State Park.Mandar Mulherkar

Anza-Borrego

CA

Six hundred thousand acres, and one valley actually worth the drive.

Best: FallEasy trip
BORTLE 3A Joshua tree standing between granite boulders beneath the Milky Way in Joshua Tree National Park.NPS/Brad Sutton

Joshua Tree

CA

Not the darkest sky — the darkest sky twenty million people can reach on a Friday night.

Best: FallEasy trip