The search began on March 28, 2023 for Stonehenge type of srtucture in my locale.
Living in Colorado along the Front Range of mountains, my initial thoughts were to find a location where I could easily see the mountains and have a fixture on the ground to reference my viewing location. Broomfield's main water towers are just behind this Solstice Memorial Observing Bench.
This location would be ideal to find the mountain peaks that the sun set behind on the Summer Solstice from the Solstice Memorial Observing Bench. The only issue with this location was that from this time through the end of June, 2023, Colorado experienced an extended moonsoon season. What this meant were it would be a beautiful clear morning in my area, but by the afternoon, the thunderstorms would build and the sky would be overcast, or just overcast in the western sky where the sun would be setting.
For the next month, alnost all evening sunsets looked like this. If this persisted into late June, the chances of observing a sunset on the summer solstice would not occur.
So by May 30, 2023, my idea of finding a Stonehenge in Broomfield changed to finding a Casa Grande in Broomfield and watch the rising sun on the Summer Solstice.
I live in Broomfield, but work in Aurora, CO. I generally get up before the sun rises and drive down the interstates to work when the traffic is much less. On this morning, I decided to take a detour and visit the area of the Solstice Memorial Observing Bench to see what the sun rose over in the eastern sky from this area. This is what I found 75 yards to the east of the Solstice Memorial Observing Bench:
I visited the location again on June 6, 2023 to ensure the viewing location was good and I could record pictures of the sun rising over the Casa Broomfield I had chosen.
During this time, we were experiencing the skies being filled with smoke from a Canadian wildfire. After vitising the Casa Grande Broomfield location, I was driving to work and just a mile to the east of the Solstice Memorial Observing Bench, I observed this:
I had found a Iglesia (Church) Grande in Broomfield. The position of the sun with the church tower made this another ideal location to position the rising sun with a fixed ground landmark, the tower of this church.
The observing location is near this fire hydrant.
I was set with a backup plan to record the rising sun near the Summer Solstice if the evening's setting sun was obscured by clouds.
