Red-lit telescopes beneath a starry Colorado sky

STARGAZE / COLORADO

AN INDEPENDENT VISITOR GUIDE TO THECOLORADOSTARGAZINGTRAIL

Explore the official trail stops in more detail. See additional dark-sky places along the way. Find astronomy programs, road-trip routes and practical information for planning a night under the stars.

22OFFICIAL TRAIL STOPS
36ADDITIONAL PLACES
07REGIONS
47EVENTS / PROGRAMS

COLORADO NIGHT-SKY FIELD GUIDE / START ANYWHERE

STATEWIDE MAP / FIND YOUR PLACE

The Colorado Stargazing Trail

All of the stops, routes, and regions on one map. Click on a place or region to begin your journey down the Colorado Stargazing Trail.

STATEWIDE MAP / GUIDE GEOGRAPHY

Map of the Colorado Stargazing Trail

Base map: USGS/Census geography. Colored areas are curated guide travel zones and dashed lines show the general routes. Hover or keyboard focus to find pin names. Defunct listings are excluded.

MAP KEY ↗

Swipe map to explore

Denver
Colorado Springs
Fort Collins
Boulder
Pueblo
Grand Junction
Durango
Steamboat Springs
Gunnison
Montrose
Alamosa
Cortez
Glenwood Springs
Aspen
Breckenridge
Salida
Trinidad
Lamar
Craig
✦Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park•Boulder✦Breckenridge✦Browns Canyon National Monument•CampV•Chamberlin Observatory✦Chimney Rock National Monument•Colorado National Monument•Colorado Trail / Willow Creek Dark-Sky Point•Comanche National Grassland•Crawford State Park✦Crestone•Cuchara Gateway / Bear & Blue Lakes✦Curecanti National Recreation Area◉Denver Museum of Nature & Science — Space Odyssey✦Dinosaur National Monument•Eleven Mile State Park•Elkhead Reservoir State Park•Estes Park Memorial Observatory◉Fiske Planetarium✦Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument◉Fort Collins Museum of Discovery — OtterBox Digital Dome✦Frisco•Grand Mesa Observatory✦Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve✦Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area•Gunnison Valley Observatory✦Hovenweep National Monument✦Jackson Lake State Park•John Martin Reservoir State Park•Kim / Southeast Colorado dark country•Lake Pueblo State Park•Little Thompson Observatory•Loveland Pass•Madison-Macdonald Observatory•Marshall Pass✦Mesa Verde National Park•Northwest Moffat County BLM Dark Country✦Norwood✦Nucla & Naturita✦Old Snowmass✦Paonia•Pawnee National Grassland✦Ridgway•Rifle Gap State Park•Rocky Mountain National Park✦Lake Fork Earth & Sky Center / Slumgullion•Smokey Jack Observatory◉Space Foundation Discovery Center•Starry Meadows / Rocky Mountain Star Stare•State Forest State Park•Steamboat Lake State Park✦Top of the Pines•UFO Watchtower•Valley View Hot Springs✦Westcliffe & Silver Cliff◉Wings Over the Rockies Air & Space Museum◉Zacheis PlanetariumCentral Mountains & High CountryEastern & Southeast PlainsDenver, Front Range & Pikes PeakNorthwest Canyon CountrySan Luis Valley & Sangre de CristoSouthwest & Four CornersWestern Slope & Gunnison Country✦AstroTours.orgBoulder Valley Ranch
USGS TOPOCENSUS TIGER / MAJOR ROADS58 ACTIVE GUIDE PLACES IN FRAME
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Official Colorado Stargazing Trail placePlaces that are on the Official Colorado Stargazing Trail.

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Guide additionActive independent stop or resource beyond the official stops.

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Daytime space stopMuseum, planetarium or indoor space-science stop paired with the night trail.

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Featured guided programPublished meeting location. Booking/access rules still apply.

Guide route corridorStop constellation, not turn-by-turn routing.

Guide region zoneCurated geographic extent; intentionally overlapping and not an administrative boundary.

MAP DATAUSGS The National Map supplies terrain, names and base transportation. Census TIGERweb reinforces primary/secondary road geometry. Defunct guide listings are excluded from active maps. Colored guide regions are curated travel-zone overlays; route lines connect each route’s mapped stop centers. Blue daytime-space pins identify museum and planetarium facilities rather than observing sites. Featured program pins use the operator’s published meeting-location coordinates.

CHOOSE YOUR WAY IN / FOUR DOORS

How do you want to explore?

Dive deeper into the dedicated places, routes, events, or choose-your-own-adventure pages.

ABOUT THE GUIDE / START HERE

Let us be your guide down the
Colorado Stargazing Trail

This independent companion brings the Colorado Stargazing Trail together with the best events, places, and the practical information needed to turn the trail into an actual adventure.

This guide ties dark-sky places, observatories, museums, events and guided experiences together to bring a Colorado night-sky trip out of this world.

Use the map to get oriented, then open a place, route, event or planning page to explore deeper.

Telescopes silhouetted beside a fence under the night skyCST / 01
MORE THAN JUST THE COLORADO STARGAZING TRAILThis guide lets you find the Colorado Stargazing adventure that fits you.
A line of telescopes glowing red beneath a dark sky
TONIGHT / QUICK STARTFOUR CHECKS BEFORE YOU GO

LAND + SKY / INDEPENDENT COMPANION

Respect the land.
Share the sky.

ColoradoStargazingTrail.com pays respect to the Indigenous peoples and sovereign Tribal Nations whose homelands include what is now Colorado, including Ute, Cheyenne, Arapaho and Puebloan peoples. Those relationships with land and sky are living and continuing.

This site is an independent companion to Colorado's official Stargazing Trail, not the official trail website itself. It builds on the official trail guide with additional planning detail, places and programs to help visitors actually use the trail.

About this guide + land and sky

NIGHT RIDE / NEXT EXITS

Where do you want to go next?

Take a turn you have not tried yet. Follow the road into a new place, a new kind of night or something worth knowing before the next stop.

COSMIC ROULETTE / RANDOM GUIDE SIGNAL

Can't decide? Let the stars guide you.

Click once and the guide will race through the places on the statewide map, lock onto one at random, then open that place page.

SIGNALAWAITING STAR SIGNAL