No Parking in the Milky Way

It has been a busy and fun summer and I have gotten out of the occasional habit of posting to this blog. In the last two months I have taken trips to the Grand Canyon, North Carolina, San Francisco and am headed to Denver next week. Sometimes life is just too entertaining to take the time to sit and update the cyber world as to my movements.  Besides, it keeps my mother guessing.  So once again rather than write much I'll share a few pictures with more to follow.

Taken in May from the geology vista pullout on the Catalina Highway is this shot of the Milky Way over the light dome from Tucson.  We were out hoping to observe a newly identified meteor shower (the Cameleopardalids) and while the shower did not pan out, I did laugh at this shot of the Milky Way which actually hatched my plan to get out of a ticket should the Sherriff stop...."well officer, I thought it meant no parking in the Milky Way?"

Hopefully you have seen the time lapse of the Milky Way that I posted previously from the Grand Canyon North Rim Star Party in June, and this is a shot that shows you the veranda which sreved as our home base for the week...clearly, the best place to be on Earth in June.

This summer in Tucson provides few opportunities for astronomical observations...even when it is not raining we are frequently clouded out.  The picture below was taken at my house of some very dirty looking clouds.  I am starting to focus a little more on becoming a better photographer and taking pictures of these clouds was rather challenging, and the result is not too bad.

That's all for this post...next up will be a few pictures from Mount Lemmon.