Night Sky Tonight in Ghost Ranch

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.

Ghost Ranch sits in the Piedra Lumbre basin at 6,500 feet, surrounded by the layered red, yellow, and ochre cliffs that Georgia O'Keeffe painted for decades. The mesa formations provide foreground unlike anywhere else in New Mexico. The ranch offers lodging and camping on-site, and light pollution is minimal: Abiquiu is a small village, and Santa Fe's glow 60 miles southeast stays below the mesa line.

The galactic core is visible from late March through October. Spring and early summer are especially good: the desert air is dry after winter and the core rises in the southeast over the open Piedra Lumbre basin. The high desert location keeps monsoon disruption lower than at higher elevations to the north.