There’s stargazing to be had in virtually every direction from Las Vegas. It’s mainly a matter of how far you want to go. Relatively close to town is Red Rock Canyon. Along the fringes of Red Rock National Conservation Area, on Blue Diamond Road, there’s a scenic overlook and several pull-ins where you could set up you telescope and enjoy gazing at a wide variety of stars, since the eastern wall of the canyon screens much of the ambient light from the Las Vegas Strip.
"Really, all it takes is getting out of the bowl," says Andrew Kerr of the College of Southern Nevada’s planetarium. He recommends Red Rock, Valley of Fire State Park, or the shores of Lake Mead (the area between Boulder City and Hoover Dam is particularly well-screened). According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal "it might be hard to believe that beyond Sin City, Nevada has some of the nation’s blackest skies. The darkness is so deep that rural regions get national attention for their 'real' stargazing."
UNLV Department of Physics & Astronomy Professor George Rhee told the paper "Desert environments are usually where we put the world’s great observatories, because they’re dry and there are very few clouds. And we’re in one of the world’s great deserts." Unfortunately for you, Rhee and the reporter were speaking about areas at least two hours' drive from Las Vegas. The mother lode of stargazing, Tonopah, is 215 miles north of Vegas, up U.S. 95. If you’re willing to brave the trek, it has "star trails" from which one can see as many as 7,000 stars (compared to as few as 20 in Las Vegas). Rhee concludes by offering the same advice as Kerr: "Just get away from the city and the lights."
The Las Vegas Astronomical Society has an extensive website with both passive and interactive maps that will direct you to viewing sites, most of them nearly 50 miles from Las Vegas. Nearest of the bunch is the Jean Dry Lake Bed, 40 minutes’ drive south of Sin City on I-15.
The Astronomical Society also holds quarterly viewing parties at the visitors center of Red Rock NCA. Other sites reasonably close to Las Vegas are Redstone Picnic Area, in Lake Mead National Recreation Area, and Temple Bar Campground, on the Arizona side of Lake Mead. The LVAS maps can direct you to all of these.
As we mentioned, the College of Southern Nevada is home to a planetarium, which offers shows every Friday at 6 p.m., 7 p.m., and 8 p.m., and on Saturdays at the same hours plus a 3:30 p.m. matinee. After the 8 p.m. show, the telescope is available to the public for stargazing, providing that the weather is conducive to studying the planets and stars.
"Because of our [geographical] circumstances," being located on the 3200 E. Cheyenne Avenue campus, "we don’t get to see a lot, so we go for the brighter optics." Samples of what you might be able to see from the CSN observatory be found here. Happy viewing!
