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Charles Ross spent 50 yrs building Star Axis naked-eye observatory in New Mexico
- ChrisArchitect 3mo agonon-paywall: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/arts/design/charles-ross-star-axis-land-art.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zlA.AYuK.kBG3VN_C1taq&smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/22/arts/design/charles-ross-...
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- cratermoon 3mo agohttps://www.lightpollutionmap.info/ https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/ reports the area rates a 2 "average dark sky" on the Bortle scale, just short of an "excellent" score of 1. It's location halfway between Santa Rosa and Las Vegas, New Mexico is as far from populated areas as you might think.
- vjvjvjvjghv 3mo agoI live in Albuquerque and within 2 hours you get the darkest skies you can imagine. Put that together with the average elevation and the dryness and the views are spectacular.
- dlivingston 3mo agoI grew up in southern NM, near White Sands, and the skies were so dark and vibrant that the Milky Way band is visible and prominent, and thousands of stars dot the night sky. My parent's first date was going stargazing in the desert!
- Chris2048 3mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Axis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Axis
- ck2 3mo agogood luck if that startup gets to put up hundreds of space mirrors for nighttime daylight Dr.Becky had a good rant about it this week in the middle of her episode lol * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr52wOlyOaM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr52wOlyOaM her knowledge + enthusiasm is infectious, love it
- hunter-gatherer 3mo agoThe crazy thing is that we'll all just continue to sit back and let these sort of things happen, only screaming to each other on the internet about it, doing little to nothing.
- UltraSane 3mo agoThose mirrors will get so much pushback.
- natosaichek 3mo agoThey're only shining on people who pay for it. I am opposed to light pollution, but reflect is not a threat to anyone who likes dark skies.
- antonvs 3mo agoThat’s easily refuted. Here’s a quote from Wikipedia, references are in the original page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflect_Orbital https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reflect_Orbital : > A peer-reviewed study by the astronomer Olivier Hainaut of the European Southern Observatory (ESO), published in Astronomy & Astrophysics in July 2026 identified Reflect Orbital's planned fleet as the brightest of the roughly 1.7 million satellites proposed by various operators.[18] An observer within a reflected beam would see the satellite shining about four times brighter than the full moon, although outside the beam, the satellite would be roughly as bright as the planet Venus.[18][39] With the full constellation of 50,000 satellites, ESO estimated the night sky would become three to four times brighter overall, and warned that illumination from a single mirror-satellite could ruin an exposure from a camera like that of the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
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- ilamont 3mo agoUnfortunately, the article says that you basically need to be rich in order to experience this work of art: “Today, donors can pay a thousand dollars or more to visit with a small group, or sponsor a stair for six figures.” It sounds like there may be liability issues as well for people visiting in the dark. The article mentioned the state legislature of New Mexico evaluated a plan to purchase it, but abandoned it.
- teraflop 3mo agoThe official website (https://www.staraxis.org/ https://www.staraxis.org/) has this to say: > Fundraising is currently underway to complete construction this year and plan for the future of Star Axis. Star Axis will not open to the public for several years. Thank you for your patience. > Your contribution to our fundraising campaign will provide opportunities for you to visit Star Axis between June and September 2026. Which seems to hint that they're not planning to keep the current pricing model indefinitely. Hopefully it becomes more affordable once the construction has been fully paid for. On the other hand, just looking at the pictures, it seems like the site might get pretty crowded if there were a significant number of visitors per day. So I guess there needs to be some kind of gatekeeping to prevent congestion. But maybe the remote location is enough to do that.
- vjvjvjvjghv 3mo agoI don't think it would get too crowded. There really isn't much else going on in that area and not much population either.
- eps 3mo agoThe pricelist: https://landlightfoundation.givingfuel.com/llf-donations https://landlightfoundation.givingfuel.com/llf-donations
- fathermarz 3mo agoAnd in 5,000 years, they will say. “They must have worshipped this star to create such a monument around it, showing how connected to the stars this ancient civilization was”
- antonvs 3mo agoExactly. Egyptologists have long overlooked the “built by an obsessed artist” theory of the pyramids.
- vjvjvjvjghv 3mo agoI have similar thoughts about cave paintings and petroglyphs. Maybe they were done by graffiti teenagers and the elders were complaining about these young vandals.
- hinkley 3mo agoOne of the pigments used for cave painting is also a really good natural sunscreen. So there is probably some truth to that. Perhaps recorded exploits of either first successful hunts, or hunts that earmarked one of their number for leadership potential later in life. Little village princelings being lauded by their friends.
- hinkley 3mo agoIf you're doing the same job every day for dozens of years, that's a lot of time to figure out ways to do the work better. But whatever they were doing was either so mundane or such a trade secret that they never wrote it down. But they did write down the quarrying and transportation process, so people tend to assume 'mundane' instead. One of the latest theories is cranes using workers as the counterbalance, just having them step on and off a platform to raise and lower the stones. The pyramid is such a strange shape, which makes some activities that might tell us more about how they were made rather prohibitive. I expected them to find at some point evidence of a pyramid having its dimensions augmented partway through construction but nobody has claimed finding evidence of any such thing. One of the science Youtubers has a video that shows how just under half the volume of a martini glass is in the last 20% of the height. So imagine you were an Egyptian ruler who has survived many many years, and you're looking at your tomb which is estimated to be finished sometime next year, and you asked the engineers if they couldn't add some more stone around the sides to make it 10% taller. They would look sideways at each other and then explain how many additional years it would take to do that, and wouldn't it instead be better to go for fancier cap stones, and artwork in the King's Chamber, which we have only just begun placing and would be easier to change? Maybe they would even have a little demonstration to show the volumetric difference between pyramids of closely separated dimensions, to save their literal necks.
- xtiansimon 3mo agoOn a personal note I used to love stargazing in the mountains of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains as a child. Sort of lost some of the magic when I started needing to wear prescription eyeglasses.
- fnord77 3mo agoAbydos?
- KevinMS 3mo agoWas wondering what this was all about and then visited the website > Star Axis, his largest project, was conceived in 1971 now it makes sense, groovy
- eps 3mo agohttps://vimeo.com/1120315498 https://vimeo.com/1120315498 - 6 min overview, from their website Fast forward to 5:50 and the "groovy" comment will click in.