gunnison valley observatory

We heard about this at the Gunnison Visitor Center and thought this would be a nice way to spend a pleasant cool summer evening during our stay in Gunnison. However it really was a highlight. While awaiting a lecture that evening from a professor at Western State our enthusiastic volunteers used large telescops to show us a number of things with high powered telescopes, such as Saturn's rings. After the lecture we went to large room upstairs to see things such a close up views of globular clusters and got to see a large telescope in action. Unfortunately our visited coincided with the Supermoon, so the sky was overwhelmed by the Moon's light. Do plan on spending around 1 to 1.5 hours there - there is a crowd a bit of a wait to get to the large telescope but it is well worth it.

Our family found this hidden gem last year and returned again this summer. The observatory is open for public viewing Friday and Saturday nights during the summer. At dusk, guests are treated to a 30 minute long easily understandable lecture about astronomy (e.g., the Hubble telescope, galaxies). The lecture is given by either a National Park "Dark Ranger" or by one of the fanatastic volunteers that runs the observatory. After the lecture, guests are allowed to view the skies through the observatory's 30 inch reflective telescope, as well as through some smaller ones (e.g., 10 inch reflective). The folks who run this place are so wonderful. During both of our visits, my 11 year old son brought his telescope and the people at GVO helped him to better understand its functioning and helped him to locate stars and planets using his own scope. This place is really inspiring and is a testament to what a community can do when it works together. The GVO runs solely on volunteers' time and visitor donations (they suggest a $5 donation/adult and $3/kid--a huge bargain!). I wish I could give this place 10 stars!