The National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico, United States, is located on the rim of the forested Sacramento mountains overlooking the White Sands National Monument and the Tularosa basin of New Mexico. The primary instrument for this observatory is an evacuated (vacuum) column used for continuous monitoring of the sun during daylight hours. Visitors are welcome at this National Observatory, which is about an hour drive from Alamogordo, New Mexico.

The observatory is administered as part of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO), which also administers Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) and the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile.

There is another observatory nearby, at Apache Peak, which is administered by a consortium of universities.

External link

• National Solar Observatory home page