Sunny Day on Kitt Peak National Observatory

On Saturday my younger daughter and I drove 60 miles west to Kitt Peak National Observatory, located on the Tohono O'odham reservation. Ostensibly I was looking for wildflowers -- 'tis the season and all -- but mostly I wanted to hang out with my excellent little traveling companion and goggle at the big telescopes atop the 7,000-foot mountain (there are 26 telescopes in all). Here are a handful of photos, and all 57 larger photos are over in the main gallery:

Wildflower-dotted picnic area alongside Arizona Highway 86, with Kitt Peak in the distance.

The road up to Kitt Peak, where swaths of Mexican goldpoppies ribboned the ridges.

View of many of the telescopes on Kitt Peak, from the 4-meter Mayall observatory on the left to the (barely visible) McMath-Pierce national solar observatory on the right.

One of the ten worldwide radio-telescope antennas of the Very Large Baseline Array (VLBA) with the 4-meter Mayall telescope in the distance.

My traveling partner.

Dad and daughter in the gallery below the national solar observatory.

View of the telescopes atop Kitt Peak.

View of my younger daughter and the telescopes atop Kitt Peak.

The SARA .9-meter telescope dome.

Peek-a-boo: my younger daughter, a star in her own right.

View all of the photos at the gallery: http://www.simmonsbuntin.com/images/gallery/2010/kitt_peak/