Night Sky Tonight in Florissant Fossil Beds

The live score above pulls today's forecast and runs it through StarCast's scoring model, which factors in cloud cover, moon illumination, Bortle class, humidity, and atmospheric transparency. Above 70 is an excellent night. Below 40, conditions are poor. The score updates daily.

Florissant Fossil Beds sits at 8,400 feet on Colorado's South Park plateau, surrounded by open meadows and petrified redwood stumps that make for unusual foreground subjects. The monument is far enough from Colorado Springs (35 miles) to escape most of its glow, and the surrounding Teller County landscape is sparsely developed. Eleven Mile State Park and Spinney Mountain are nearby for additional shooting locations on the same trip.

The galactic core is visible from late March through October. Spring and early summer are ideal before the afternoon monsoon pattern picks up in July. The petrified stumps work especially well as foreground in May and June when the core rises in the southeast and the meadow grasses are green.