Sunday, September 7, 2008



I attended the Black Forest Star Party this past weekend, which was held at Cherry Springs Stare Park in Potter County Pennsylvania. This park is the second International dark sky park in the world.

This image is of the zodiacal light, also known as the false dawn. as it points up to the right and merges with our home galaxy the milky way, forming this pyramid of light. The zodiacal light is sunlight scattered off of dust in the solar system. It can only be seen at a very dark site. Sadly, light pollution in the industrialized world has robbed most of us of the night sky and sights such as this. I had to travel over fives hours to reach Cherry Springs, which is one of the few remaining dark sky sights east of the Mississippi river.

The bright white spot in the lower right of the image is the star Sirius shining through the trees. Sirius is the brightest star in our night skies.

2 comments:

Linda aka Elemobe said...

What a clever twist on the theme - well spotted. Think its great.

Anonymous said...

This is an amazing photo! I will share these night sky images with my 11-year-old who enjoyed some night-sky watching at the cottage this summer.