Also on my list of KC places to photograph was some nice railroad bridges going through Swope Park, one over Gregory south of the Zoo, the other over 63rd, north of it. I see these just about every time I go to the zoo, which is a lot, and have …

On Sunday I got restless and decided to go out and about and photograph things around Kansas City I've been wanting to, but never have. It was raining when I decided, but it was forecasted to stop soon after I left (ominous foreshadowing).

First stop was looking over the Kansas …

After leaving the Great Plains Zoo and heading back towards home, in Iowa I saw a sign on the highway for the Loess Hills State Forest. Following the signs off the highway, I got closer to the bluffs from the Missouri River and a spot that had recently been burned …

On my way back from Mitchell, SD I stopped at the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, SD. A friend told me there was a baby Pallas Cat there, so figured it would be worth it.

Naturally it was rainy that morning, and saw neither hide nor hair of the …

On the evening of Saturday the 14th the NOAA Aurora Dashboard gave pretty good odds of there being a good aurora the following day, with the view line almost reaching down into Missouri, with a chance of it being overhead as far south as northern Iowa and Nebraska.

Looking at …

On Friday after work, I decided to drive 2 hours, a bit over 100 miles, to northern Missouri which is the closest darkest skies I could find, some little place ran by the Missouri Department of Conservation called Seat Memorial Conservation Area.

Got to the area at about 8:30 …

The August 2017 eclipse passed directly over my grandparent's house, west of Saint Louis, which made figuring out where to watch it from easy. Totality for this one was a bit further away, but still within a day's drive, and a friend of mine had never seen an eclipse before …

That'll do, Andromeda, that'll do.

I'm still amazed this worked with all the light pollution around.

At least through my telescope filter: Set the color temperature to 3500K, then drop the black level until outside of the sun loses most of the color cast. Unfortunately a high haze today, so I couldn't focus too sharp.

I started taking pictures of the sun earlier this year when …

Taken 2024-05-11 in north central Missouri, about 20 miles south of the Iowa border. Found some little turnoff for a gate in a fence and camped for a few hours. I was about to leave disappointed, and during packing up "What are those weird lines I'm seeing north in the …