From Cloudcroft, a road goes south on the ridge of the Sacramento Mountains for 17 miles to reach 2 professional observatories,
the National Solar Observatory and the Apache Point Observatory. Both are at elevation 9000 feet. They are very close from each other,
just a few hundred yards, so a visit to one calls for a visit to the other.
They are both public professional observatories, so the visitor can walk around. They are built on the edge of the ridge.
The view is magnificent to the west, looking over Alamogordo and further over White Sands National Monument. The White Sands are unmistakable,
a white patch glowing in the sun and looking like snow.
The Apache Point Observatory only works during the night. It has 4 buildings shielding 4 telescopes. One of them is used for the Sloan Digital
Sky Survey, a project started in 2000 to map 25% of the sky and get observations on 100 million objects in the sky, mostly very distant galaxies.
3 major telescopes are in function, a 3.5 meter telescope for the Astrophysical Research Consortium, a 2.5 meter telescope for the Sloan Survey
and a 1 meter telescope for the New Mexico State University. There’s also a 0.65 meter telescope.
With so many professional observatories around, it is not a surprise that New Mexico has the strictest laws against light pollution in the
United States.
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