The San Luis Valley sits at 7,600 feet under a Bortle Class 2 sky, the second-darkest rating on the scale, and the reason Kosmos became Colorado's first DarkSky Approved Lodging property. The Great Sand Dunes National Park entrance is 18 minutes away.
A tour puts a certified astronomer and a telescope between you and that sky for an evening. You do not need to know a single constellation to come, and nobody will make you feel like you should.
Reserve a nightYou get here at dusk, while there is still light on the Sangre de Cristos. Red headlamps go out, phones go down, and your eyes begin the twenty minutes it takes to adapt. Most people have never let that happen.
Before any glass, your astronomer walks you across the sky by eye: the constellations actually overhead tonight, how to find them again from your own backyard, and what the Milky Way looks like when you can finally see the whole of it.
Telescopes work whatever targets are up that night, from planets to star clusters to nebulae. On the Astronomy Enthusiast and Private tours you recline in a reserved zero-gravity chair with binoculars while the scopes are repositioned between objects.
You leave with a printed photograph. Warm up in the dome with something to drink, ask the questions you have been saving, and keep asking after: your Kosmos Stargazer membership comes with the astronomers attached.
All prices are per person. Every tour runs under Bortle Class 2 skies at 7,600 feet, 18 minutes from the Great Sand Dunes National Park entrance.
Every tour is led by one of two people. Neither reads from a script, and both will keep answering questions long after the hour is up.
Nerissa runs the sky program at Kosmos and lives twenty-five minutes away in Alamosa, where she is finishing her PhD. She has spent years putting people behind telescopes for the first time, and she is very good at the part where you have no idea what you are looking at yet.
Mark is a self-taught astronomer with twenty-five years behind a camera, and a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador. He has guided thousands of people through the night sky for astronomy clubs, schools and land trusts across Colorado. Every astrophotograph on this page is his.
Colorado's first DarkSky Approved Lodging property, in one of the darkest places left on the map.
Every shot below was taken right here at Kosmos, under our Bortle Class 2 skies.
Every Kosmos stargazing tour includes an astronomer-led session under Bortle Class 2 skies, viewing through Celestron Origin and 10-inch Dobsonian telescopes, Celestron binoculars and zero-gravity chairs, access to the heated dome with snacks and drinks, a red headlamp to protect your night vision, a printed photograph to take home, and a one-year Kosmos Stargazer membership.
