Flying by the Seat of Our Plans

Age is but a number, and "old" can also be "young" depending on the frame of reference.  Micah and I, a pair of thirty-somethings, traveled to the Cache River to see some "young" trees cast against the "old" Milky Way galaxy and it was a mystical trip. We had managed to get out to Kinkaid Spillway and Little Cedar Spillway  in May during the new moon, when the Milky Way is most visible, but most nights during that week were cloudy.  We were hoping to get out once more, so I did some planning and found a few nights where the roughly half-moon would set early enough to give us a few hours of dark.  Early in our summer Milky Way planning back in April, Micah had the great idea to shoot from the Lower Cache Access on Perks Access Road, which faces southward, and therefore works well for seeing the Milky Way core.   I, of course, always make things more complicated.  I was thinking about trying to take a picture of the state champion bald cypress tre...

It happened again.  The forecast had been calling for nothing but clouds, but then it changed late at night.  I walked out on the porch and saw the clouds parting.  I asked Laura if it was okay for me to head out since Lucy was in bed. She, of course, supported my compulsion.  It was too late to call friends, so I went solo.  I thought about going somewhere about an hour away but decided to stay a bit closer just in case it clouded up and also so I'd have more time to shoot.  So, I took off towards Landreth Road and the Little Cedar Spillway. I had pre-planned a shot of the Milky Way over the spillway for around 3am, but got down there around midnight just in case.  Landreth Road was a muddy, rutted mess on the drive in, so I was glad I had brought the truck instead of the hybrid this time.  I donned my hip waders and started walking down the two-track trail, seeing stars through the trees during the whole slip-and-slide hike down. Some bats a...

Micah and I had been discussing going to shoot the Milky Way since early April.  It would be his first time trying to do astrophotography and I was looking forward to nerding out teaching him all the techniques that I have learned in the last two years.   I got out on a nice night in April near the house at Crab Orchard Lake , but May wasn't coming together like we had planned.  Every night near the new moon was forecasted to be cloudy and we canceled the two nights that we had hoped to get out.  But, a few nights later, I was looking at the weather forecast and it said that it was clearing up THAT NIGHT! I had just gotten home from a 9-mile walk with Lucy at Tunnel Hill, so Laura was kind enough to go outside and verify that the clouds were dissipating as I laid on the living room floor.  The next few hours were a back-and-forth, wishy-washy mess that resulted in Micah, another friend, Keoni, and I deciding to give it a shot at Kinkaid Lake spillway.  W...

It's that time of year again!  The time of year when we can see the Milky Way core in North America.  We can always see the Milky Way since we are in it, but the most photogenic part is only visible up here in the warmer months. Normally, I travel to dark sky sites in Missouri or SE Illinois, but in keeping with the spirit of stay-at-home for COVID-19, I decided to go to Crab Orchard National Wildlife Refuge, which is five minutes from my house.  There's a little bit more night pollution there, but I figured I would see what I could get to come out. My primary tripod broke last week, and I finally ordered a nice, tall, strong tripod.  It was set to arrive Wednesday, so I planned to go then, during the new moon.  The weather mandated that I move the outing to Tuesday night, so I improvised, using hardware in my garage to mount my ballhead to a vintage Travelite tripod that my dad gave me.  It was a cobbled-together rig, but it would work for a night....

We had such a great time in the eastern Missouri Ozarks a couple weeks ago that we convinced my sister and her fiance, Richard, to meet us to spend one day of their visit over there before coming to Carbondale.  They would fly into St. Louis and we would drive over to meet them.  The question was "how?".  The Chester bridge was still closed, and so we would go through Cape Girardeau.  We planned to head out some time Friday evening.  Luckily, I noticed an alert that morning warning us that routes 3 and 146 would be closing at 7pm, so we got into high gear to get down there before that.  We made it to McClure around 6:15pm and sat for about 45 minutes.  I think it was just after 7 when we got to drive through and we saw them close the road behind us.   I had wanted to do some long-exposures of the flooding, but realized quickly that it wasn't situationally appropriate to stop and set up a tripod on the side of the highway and that we shou...