Route 66 - Flagstaff, Arizona

Flagstaff, Arizona and the Lowell Observatory are a perfect match. As the scout for an observatory site stated in the 1890s, when tasked with looking for a suitable place, "other things being equal, the higher we can get, the better".

Established in 1894, the Lowell Observatory is one of the oldest in the United States and worthy of being designated one of "The World's 100 Most Important Places" by TIME magazine in 2011. The Observatory's major claim to fame is for the discovery of Pluto by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930.

Tombaugh had an unusual path to astronomy; part of a farming family, his college plans had to be put aside when a storm ruined the farm's crops. He started to build his own telescopes at the age of 20 in 1926, testing them by digging himself caves to keep the air temperature constant - this also doubled neatly for family use as a cellar and emergency shelter. He sent his detailed drawings of Jupiter and Mars to the Lowell Observatory, who decided to offer him a job in 1929. The young researcher was given the job of looking for Planet X - predicted by research by Percival Lowell and William Pickering - and conclusively proved on 18 February 1930.

Tombaugh was also keenly interested in the possibility of UFOs. In the mid-1950s, he said there had been three objects over the past seven years for which he could find no scientific explanation. He thought that other reputable sources were being "unscientific" in refusing to believe the possibility that aliens might exist.