Welcome to The NMAV The New Mexico Astronomy vi llage

The Good

The area where we bought property is a flat scenic valley at 4800' elevation with beautiful mountains in the distance, but not close enough to cause seeing problems. The area has clear skies over 300 nights per year. This underdeveloped neighborhood started selling five acre lots around 20 years ago. Out of 84 total lots, many have been sold, but only 12 have homes on them so far, and half of those are horse people. 20 miles of out town is a bit far out for working people to live and there is no shortage of cheap land close to town for those who are not looking for dark skies.

The development is 20 miles north of Deming, and 30 miles south of Silver City on highway 180, near the City of Rocks state park. The land is fairly flat grasslands, with deer, antelope, and lots of small critters including coyotes. Our land is 3/4 mile off the pavement, on good gravel county maintained roads. Only 20 minutes to town. Of course there is a Super Wal-Mart and lots of other stores.

The sky is dark, and the stars are brilliant. We have observed from the property with our 16" and 24" telescopes, and the seeing and transparency were excellent.

Cell service is excellent. Four bars on my Verizon phone. The tower is two miles to the north. The white strobe light turns red in the evening. Internet can be either phone modem, cell card, or satellite.

New Mexico has lighting laws passed in 1999 that say any new outdoor lighting of 150 watts or larger must have full cutoff shielding.

In the fall of 2010 we ended a six month tour of the west, looking for the perfect place to relocate our 42" go-to Dobsonian. We are moving to darker, drier, and more transparent skies with good seeing. We have been observing in the west many times over the years, and we are well aware of the effect the wonderful transparency of the dry desert skies has on both visual observing and imaging. We find that the seeing is far better on level grasslands than rocky mountainous areas!

After 14 years of living at the Chiefland Astronomy Village in Florida, Tom and Jeannie Clark have moved to New Mexico. We purchased property and are looking for some astronomers to become our neighbors. Living in an astronomy village was a very enjoyable experience that we hope to continue in New Mexico.

This 'astronomy village' will be informal. No one is in charge, or trying to make a profit from your moving here. The five+ acre lots for sale from the original developer are listed at very reasonable prices. There are also some re-sales available. We hope to have around 50 astronomy families in the area when the lots are all sold.

Here are some of the requirements we were looking for:

1. Black skies on the light pollution maps
2. No miles and miles of rough dirt roads. One mile max was our limit.
3. Good seeing
4. Good transparency
5. Low humidity
6. Room for other astronomers to move to the area
7. Good restaurants and grocery stores less than 1/2 hour away
8. A reasonable year round climate.
9. An affordable area with low taxes
10. Golf courses and other activities close by. (We are not hermits)
11. Able to park your RV on your property
12. An astronomy club nearby
13. Plenty of room for astronomy friends to visit and observe

Cloudy Nights relocating thread

City of Rocks State Park

Silver City Astronomical Society

History:

We found many places that had black skies but did not work out for many reasons.

We fell in love with Flagstaff, AZ (6800') until learning about the 200" average yearly snowfall, and hearing that it is under 30˚ over one-half the nights of the year.

The Cloudcroft area (9000') sounded great until looking at the light-pollution maps. Study the climate and it is very cold for a good part of the year. Land was for sale around New Mexico Skies (7000') Only $175,000 for two-acre lots! A bit expensive? They also have way too many rules. Decent grocery stores are one hour away. No modular homes: Expensive homes only.

Ranch Hidalgo (4450') sounded good, but heard that they had sold out already. Again an hour or more to a decent grocery store like Wal-Mart or civilization.

In most parts of the country, by the time you find dark skies with good seeing, you are far from civilization, Home Depot, and the mall. Good paved roads do not go out there. We looked at many places that had horrible rough roads that an RV could not navigate. We started

looking in New Mexico because it has a low population density and it is a low-tax state. A state-wide lighting ordinance was enacted in 1999. They know they have dark skies and want to protect them.

We first learned about the Silver City area (6000') by searching for astronomy clubs in New Mexico. The Silver City Astronomical Society (SCAS) is a fairly new and very active club. It's small but growing and only about 2 years old. They also have some private observatories in the area. I contacted the club officers, and was invited to some of the member's homes. Nice people! I gave a presentation at one of their club meetings where the warm welcome was appreciated. After a month of looking around SC and looking at property in all directions, we picked a location (4850') between Silver City and Deming, that would be suitable for the new observatory for our 42", and purchased our property.

3/9/12 After selling our Florida property we have moved to the site. We are looking for others to join us. There are 21 properties listed for sale in the new neighborhood, and we hope the prime ones near us will go quickly. Another 40 properties were sold by the developer but are not lived on, so they may be available as resales.

The Bad

The land is flat. Flat means light domes in the distance. For instance, in AZ the Phoenix light dome can be seen over 100 miles.

The Deming (population 15,000) light dome is about 5-7 degrees high in the SE. Las Cruces is dim but detectable from 60 miles away to the E-SE. West is black. The Silver City (population 17,000) can barely be seen 30 miles N. If you plant a few trees, as some of the neighbors have done, you will see nothing but black sky…

There is a tiny 'Rest Area' on the highway, with a few lights. The few parking lot lights are full cut-off lights with no sky glow, but two small ones on the side of the rest rooms are not shielded.

There are a few 'yard lights' in the development and only ten neighbors in a one-mile square area. All but one are shielded.. We have observed from the area, and the neighbor's light interference is minimal. Our plan is to position our house and workshop to block any lights that can possibly be seen from our lot. The house and workshop will also block lights from highway 180. I have already met the land owners with the unshielded light and they are very nice folks, and anxious to look through our telescopes. Hopefully, they will let us replace his old yard light with a new one when they get to know us.

I may be over-emphasizing the light domes and local lights, but want to tell the truth. A few trees and shrubs can totally eliminate any lights from your property, including the light night time traffic on 180.

We will plant shrubs to shade our property and dome from highway and neighbors lights. If you are an imager and build a roll-off roof observatory, you should not have to worry about any lights and will enjoy nearly perfect skies…

4/12 We lived on site in our motorhome waiting for our new home to arrive. The workshop is finished and before long we will start the construction of a new 24' dome for our 42" telescope.

Platt layout and lot prices

NMAV

Yahoo

Group

These buttons are links to additional information about the area.

Our Yahoo Chat Group has just been set up as a convenient place to answer any questions you may have, and learn more about the neighborhood.

NMAV

Photos page

Imagine a place 4800' above sea level, where the sky is BLACK, the seeing is GOOD, and the transparency is FANTASTIC. Imagine your 16" performing like a 24", and a 24" acting like a 40".

The weather is pretty mild year round – not too hot in the summer and not too cold in the winter. It's very good for observing with 300 clear nights per year.

The NMAV is under black skies - but only 20 minutes to Deming and 30 minutes to Silver City. Land is inexpensive yet you are not isolated in the middle of nowhere. Decent stores and civilization are not too far away!

A paved highway runs right up to the edge of the neighborhood, so there is no bone-jarring, auto distroying dirt roads to get there. Come join us for a new adventure in astronomy and the best observing of your life!

The City of Rocks State Park is 5 miles from the new astronomy village. They advertise how dark their skies are, and even have a roll-off-roof observatory where they have astronomy programs for the public. Like to work on public outreach? This is a good place for it!

Cloudy Nights second thread

Tom and Jeannie Clark

Would you like to read more about living the astronomy dream? Read Tom's newest book:

Starry Starry Nights

http://www.newmexicoastronomyvillage.com

The New Mexico Astronomy Village now has its second residents. Lance and Leslie Humphreys have purchased the property next to Tom and Jeannie. They have already remodeled their home and built a large roll-off-roof observatory for their telescopes. Visit Lance's web site to learn more about our new neighbors.

This is Tom and Jeannie's Florida observatory. We lived at the Chiefand Astronomy Village for 14 years. A similar dome will soon be under construction at the NMAV. We started taking the 42" apart 2/18 for the move to the NMAV.

Visit Tom and Jeannie's place page 1 Go To Page 2 Page 3