Among other things, people need darkness to help maintain a healthy hormonal balance. Scientists estimate that 83 percent of the world’s population lives under light-polluted skies. “I like science and I'm interested in the stars," he said. He’d wanted one ever since he saw the International Space Station fly over his house in Silver City, just an hour south of the campground. Michael had just gotten a telescope for his 12th birthday. “We got our star wheels, we got our flashlights, I think we’re ready for sunset," she said. Next to the potluck table, Deborah Calkins and her son Michael wrapped red cellophane on a flashlight to help dim its intensity at night. On a recent summer afternoon a crowd of amateur astronomers and science nerds gathered at the Cosmic Campground to celebrate the sanctuary designation. ![]() "One night we were up here and…I was scared by my own shadow. “This sky is so dark and there are so many stars up there it's actually lighter than you would imagine," Grauer said. The other is in the Elqui Valley of northern Chile. IDA reviewed the data and in January designated the site as a dark sky sanctuary, only the second in the world. They sent the data to the International Dark Sky Association (IDA), a group dedicated to protecting places with little or no light pollution. "We would come about once a week and we did that for about three months, four months," she said. The couple traveled to a spot in the Gila National Forest just north of Glenwood and used special instruments to measure the darkness of the sky. She and her husband Al Grauer were part of the team effort that created the Cosmic Campground. ![]() ![]() You can see the last star of the Big Dipper come up over the edge of the Gila Wilderness," said Annie Grauer, a writer who's been married to an astromer for the last 40 years. "The thing of it is you can see a 360 here. Census counts half a person per square mile. The Cosmic Campground lies just off a two-lane highway in Catron County- New Mexico's largest and mostly rural county, where traffic lights don't exisit and the U.S. A meteor shoots across the sky above the Cosmic Campground in New Mexico.Ī remote campground in southwest New Mexico has recently become a sanctuary for star gazers seeking a pristine night sky at a time when the rapid spread of light pollution prevents more than half of the world's population from seeing the Milky Way.
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