I took one of my daughters and her friend to the Houston Museum of Natural Science. We saw dinosaurs, or the skeletons of dead ones, and ancient Egyptian mummies, they were also dead, among several other exhibits. There is also a really neat planetarium, and butterfly garden. Knowing that I was going to a butterfly… Read More Butterfly Center in Houston
Big Bend National Park is almost entirely a dark sky site with almost no light pollution. For this reason, I chose to get out to the park on a clear moonless night before summer ended. I have been to other sights with very little light pollution, like Lost Maples State Natural Area, but none as… Read More The Milky Way Over Big Bend
My primary purpose for going out to Big Bend National Park was to shoot the night sky as the park is a very dark sky site. But, I got there well before sunset and had time to hike around during the golden hour. I saw on the map a road up to a hiking trail… Read More The Balanced Rock
Earlier this week I went to the beach at Galveston Island State Park on the Gulf of Mexico. I was mainly there for a mini family vacation, so I didn’t spend a lot of time shooting pictures. About halfway through the day, I did drag the camera and tripod down to the water to take… Read More The Beach!
Saturday (July 20, 2019) was the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. To celebrate the day, I took my youngest daughter, who is quite space obsessed, to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for the special event. One of the highlights of the day was getting to see the newly restored mission control… Read More 50th Anniversary of the Moon Landing
I tried to spend some time in Yellowstone and Grand Teton taking some landscape photos, though it wasn’t my main objective on the trip. I was mainly having fun with my daughter looking at animals. Had I been there alone, I probably would have found a few places to come back to at specific times… Read More Yellowstone and Grand Teton Landscapes
My youngest daughter turned 16 this week, and for her birthday she asked me to take her and some friends down to Houston and see the space center and go to the Kemah Boardwalk amusement park. She is really into astronomy and the space program, which is awesome, so it sounded like a fun trip.… Read More Saturn V
Sunrise On my second day in Big Bend, after a windy and rainy night I woke up before the dawn. My tent had survived the night intact without leaking, but the forecast called for stronger gusts of wind throughout the morning, so I quickly packed up and stowed my tent in the car before sunrise.… Read More More Big Bend Hiking and Boquillas
When I went out to the star party at the McDonald Observatory, I wanted to try out staying at the Indian Lodge in Davis Mountains State Park nearby. This state park has a hotel that was originally built by the CCC during the great depression, I think. It had good reviews and it seemed like… Read More Staying at Indian Lodge
The University of Texas has an observatory in west Texas called the McDonald Observatory. The observatory hosts several star parties a month, in which guest can come see the stars, look through telescopes, and enjoy the dark sky. The kids had a day off of school, so I took the clan half way across Texas… Read More Star Party
