NASA
Places · Ground station
Goldstone Deep Space Complex
One of three Deep Space Network sites, 120° apart so that a spacecraft anywhere beyond the Moon is always in view of at least one of them.
The sky from here
This is a zone 3 sky — rural transition on the nine-grade scale, Bortle 3–4, reaching roughly magnitude 6.2–7.0 unaided. The Milky Way is clearly there but loses its detail near the horizon. Light domes are obvious in several directions.
That grade puts 106 of the catalogue within easy reach of 10×50 binoculars and 106 within a 130mm — 38 of them need no instrument at all. Genuinely dark sky — zone 2 or darker — starts about 7 km north-west.
There is no season here in which the sky fails to get properly dark — the Sun clears eighteen degrees below the horizon on all 365 nights.
The centre of the galaxy reaches 26° at its highest, which puts the brightest part of the Milky Way clear of the horizon murk without ever being overhead. Of the 110 Messier objects, 8 never set from here and every one of them rises at some point in the year.
Of everything in the catalogue, Hercules Cluster, Ring Nebula and Triangulum Galaxy are the best served here, climbing to within a few degrees of straight up — an object at the zenith is being seen through the least air it will ever be seen through, and the difference against the same object low in the south is not subtle.
Owl Nebula, Spindle Galaxy and Bode's Galaxy never set from this latitude, so they are available on any clear night of the year rather than for one season of it.
Read at 35.43°N 116.89°W. Darkness is estimated rather than measured; everything else follows from the latitude and holds along the whole parallel. How accurate this is.
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Questions
What part of the sky never rises at Goldstone Deep Space Complex?
Everything south of declination −55°. From 35.4°N that is a cap 35° in radius centred on the south celestial pole, which is 9.3% of the whole celestial sphere. It is out of reach permanently rather than seasonally: no time of year and no instrument brings it above the horizon. The matching 9.3% around the north celestial pole is the same geometry inverted, and never sets.
How many hours of true darkness does Goldstone Deep Space Complex get?
Between 5 hours 50 minutes on the shortest night of the year, around 21 June, and 11 hours 12 minutes on the longest, around 21 December. Astronomical darkness is the Sun more than eighteen degrees below the horizon, which is a stricter thing than the Sun being down. The sky here reaches it on every night of the year, which is not true much further from the equator.
When is the Milky Way best from Goldstone Deep Space Complex?
Around 17 June, when the galactic centre transits at local midnight, and usefully from about May to September — earlier each evening as the season goes on. 35.4°N is close enough to the equator that the sky reaches full astronomical darkness on every night of the year, so unlike sites further north there is no part of the season where the core is high and the sky refuses to cooperate.
How far is Goldstone Deep Space Complex from the other sites on this map?
Its closest neighbour on this map is Mount Wilson Observatory, 171 km away to the south-west. The nearest other ground station is Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 180 km to the south-west. Measured as the great circle between coordinates, which is the shortest path across the surface and rarely the one you could travel.