Category Archive for Chaco Culture National Historical Park

Happy Holidays from Ideum

Have a wonderful holiday season and Happy New Year. We look forward to seeing you in 2012! We’d like to share some photographs of winter scenes from Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. Fajada Butte – All of the vegetation near Chaco Wash is covered with ice following a light snowfall and dense morning fog. Remaining pockets of fog can be seen in the distance beyond Fajada Butte.Chaco Wash originates twenty miles east of Chaco Canyon…

Winter Solstice Solar Marker at Chaco Canyon

This morning I was able to observe sunrise at the great house of Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Culture National Historical Park. The weather was dicey, so I feel very lucky to have captured this amazing solar display. This effect is seen at sunrise for the days surrounding the time of the winter solstice. The sun shines through a corner window and the image appears in the…

A View of the Moon from Chaco Culture National Park

Last week, I was part of a group of amateur astronomers who attempted to capture NASA’s LCROSS mission impact from Chaco Canyon. As I mentioned in an earlier post , I first tried my hand at astrophotography the weekend before the event. The photograph below was taken just after the spacecraft impact early in the morning on October 7th. Unfortunately, the event was not visible from any of our telescopes. (You’ll have to visit NASA’s LCROSS site to see the effects of the…

Viewing the Moon from Chaco Canyon

Chaco Culture National Historic Park is a great place for amateur astronomy. Its remote location, climate, altitude and facilities have made it a popular destination for night sky viewing. This weekend I was lucky enough to try my hand at astrophotography. Having (literally) photographed nearly every place in Chaco Canyon over the last decade (see Traditions of the Sun), it seemed natural to try to point my camera skyward. The photograph below is my first attempt at astrophotography. Early Friday morning at 5AM,…

Summer Solstice at Chaco Canyon

This weekend, I headed up to Chaco Culture National Historic Park on the summer solstice to see traditional dancers. The Friends of Native Cultures have been organizing the appearance of native dancers each solstice since 2000, and I’ve been lucky enough to be at four out of the last five (you can see photos from 2004, 2006, 2007, and there are lots more photos of Chaco Culture at the Traditions of the Sun Website.) The dancers perform in the plaza…

More Photos of the Zuni Dancers at Chaco Canyon

Here are more photographs of the Cellicion Traditional Zuni Dancers celebrating the Summer Solstice at Chaco Canyon National Historical Park. To witness the dances at Chaco was an amazing experience. As Fernando Cellicion, Director of the dance group, noted, “it is hard to describe the feeling that we have dancing at the same place where the same thing was happening thousands of years ago.” Raydean Johnson (foreground) peforms the Turkey Dance. Also pictured: Belyle Johnson and Alexandra Nastacio. Raydean Johnson…

Summer Solstice at Chaco Canyon

Yesterday a few of us headed up to Chaco Culture National Historical Park to celebrate the summer solstice and to see and film dancers from Zuni Pueblo. Since 2001, the park and the Friends of Native Cultures have been organizing the appearance of native dancers each solstice. Chaco is considered an ancestral homeland for the Pueblo people, so the events surrounding solstice at the park are quite powerful. Last year, we took pictures and met dancers from Hopi. Three years ago, we…

Rainbows over Pueblo Bonito

We just back from a quick weekend trip to Chaco Culture National Historical Park. For those of you who are familiar with Ideum, you probably know that we’ve been involved with the park over the last few years, and have developed the website and a book for NASA’s Traditions of the Sun project focusing on archaeoastronomy in Chaco Canyon. This weekend we were in the park to help photograph a possible lunar alignment, but due to cloud cover, that didn’t quite turn…

More Summer Solstice Photographs

Here’s some more photographs from our trip to Chaco Culture National Historical Park on the Summer Solstice. As I mentioned in the previous post the dancers are Hopi and are from Second Mesa, Arizona. Deer dancer makes a call. Three girls with feathers. The youngest dancer. A hunter dancer. The entire group in the Plaza of the great house, Pueblo Bonito.

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