Second Day: Sonora Desert Museum and Gates Pass

Day two of our trip didn't include much relevant to astronomy, but we spent a great day wandering the Sonora Desert Museum with stops at Gates Pass on the way there and back. I was in Tucson for J-Term 2010 and visited the museum then, so I knew exactly where I wanted to go when I returned, including the aviaries, free flight exhibition, and Mountain Lion exhibit. The free flight raptor exhibition was excellent as always, and I spent at least an hour wandering the two aviaries, mostly the hummingbird exhibit (I love hummingbirds and am a closet photographer, so I can happily spend hours following them around waiting for the perfect shot). I stopped by a couple of the large-animal exhibits to see the ones that weren't out in the open during my last visit and was lucky enough to catch one of the Mountain Lions sunbathing and munching on some grass.

We came back to town too early to see sunset over Gates Pass, but the vista from the top was breathtaking regardless. We had an hour or so to relax at the hotel before heading to dinner and spent the next couple hours discussing everything from cafeteria food to the difficulty of containing superfluids. After we returned to the hotel from dinner I settled in to download, sort and edit the several hundred pictures I took today. A few people brought out the small telescope we brought from Carthage to look at Jupiter, but since I have been observing it with my Galileoscope for months and we will be spending a lot of our time on the mountain this week imaging it I decided my time would be better spent finishing my pictures and writing this blog entry.

Jenny

The following are a few of my favorite pictures from the Sonora Desert Museum including a Broad-Billed Hummingbird, Harris's Hawks, and a Costa's Hummingbird.