As anyone who has ever tried to do some stargazing will tell you, there are two things that can really wreck your night: clouds and those freakin’ lights. The clouds are pretty much out of our control, but light pollution can, to some degree, be escaped if you run far enough from civilization.

The International Dark-Sky Association has been advocating for the control of light pollution since 1988. One way it does that is to recognize public places with exceptionally good viewing through its International Dark Sky Parks program. To qualify, parks have to meet strict standards for viewing quality, use astronomy-friendly lighting in the park, and perform astronomy outreach.

So far, a handful of national and state parks in the US (and a few internationally) have become part of the program. The latest addition is Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico. The 34,000-acre park is home to a large number of archaeological sites relating to the Pueblo people that lived there. The large stone buildings in the area appear to have been designed to track solar cycles (by marking the summer solstice, for instance, as shown in Carl Sagan’s Cosmos). The park has had a public astronomy program for over twenty years, but the history of looking up goes back over a thousand.

As a part of its new International Dark Sky Park designation, Chaco has pledged to preserve the quality of its skies for even more people to enjoy.