An evening with our resident astronomers under Bortle Class 2 skies, 18 minutes from the Great Sand Dunes National Park entrance.
Check availabilityPrivate at your villa ↓The San Luis Valley is high, dry and almost entirely unlit. Kosmos became Colorado's first DarkSky Approved Lodging property because the sky above it genuinely qualifies, not because we pointed a telescope at it.
Red headlamps out, phones down. Your eyes take about twenty minutes to adapt, and most people have never let that happen.
Before any glass, your astronomer walks you across what is actually overhead tonight, and shows you how to find it again from home.
Celestron Origin and 10-inch Dobsonian telescopes, working whatever the season offers. Recline with binoculars between objects.
A printed photograph, something hot to drink in the dome, and questions answered for as long as you have them.
The sky changes nightly. What you see depends on the season and the moon, and your astronomer will tell you what is up before you arrive.
Booking here gets you the same price and the better cancellation terms. Tours run every clear night; we watch the forecast daily and tell you well before you drive out.
The standard evening, led by one of our astronomers, on site under the open sky. Add-ons available when you book.
Check availabilityYour own astronomer and telescopes, set up at your villa. Everyone staying is included. No driving out to a field, and your hot tub is a few steps away.
Reserve a sessionOpen to San Luis Valley residents and Kosmos VIP Members. The valley welcomed us and gave us our start; these nights are its turn to use the place.
See upcomingEvery 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.
Every image here was captured on the ground you will be standing on, with the equipment that will be set up when you arrive. None of it is stock, and none of it is NASA.
We watch the forecast every day. If cloud cancels your tour, we move you to another night or refund you in full.
You will hear from us well before you set out, not when you arrive. Nobody drives to the valley to stand under an overcast sky.
The darker the moon, the more you see. The nights around a new moon are the best of any month, and they book first.
The Milky Way core is overhead and the nights are mild. Tours start late, once the sky is genuinely dark.
Colder, but the steadiest air of the year and the earliest starts. Dress for standing still at 7,600 feet.
It was great fun to get to see so many different telescopes under such a beautiful dark sky.
The CEO was there, the architect, the director of Astronomy, a NASA astrophysicist from Goddard, local recreational astronomers. This place is world class.
Layers, and more than you think. You are standing still at 7,600 feet after dark, and the valley drops temperature fast once the sun is gone. Bring a warm hat even in summer.
No. Most guests have never looked through a telescope. Your astronomer starts with the sky by eye and works up from there.
Yes. Mark Cunningham has 25 years behind a camera and is happy to help you set up. A tripod and a lens that opens wide will get you further than an expensive body.
Not for the standard tour, which is open to anyone. Private Villa Stargazing is for guests staying with us, because it happens at your villa.
It depends on the season and the moon. Planets, star clusters, nebulae and galaxies are all in reach on a dark night. We will tell you what is up before you come, and we do not promise specific objects.
18 minutes to the National Park entrance, 16.2 miles. Alamosa is 25 minutes away, and so is the regional airport.
$129 per adult, $99 per child. Full refund if cloud cancels your evening.
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