Planets in the Morning Twilight

Morning twilight fades away the stars as seen from a desert near Damghan, a historic city of Iran. Planet Venus is the bright light in the sky, shining above the rising head of Scorpius. Mercury is another planet in this image, right at the eastern horizon. The structure in the foreground is ruins of a water reservoir made besides a large desert caravansary on the Silk Road, in an ancient city known as Qumis (or Hecatompylos as recorded by Greek historians). Qumis is now buried under the desert but once was the amazing city of “hundred gates” founded 2300 years ago during Seleucid kingdom of ancient Persia. The city’s area was about 28 km² at its peak, which would indicate a population in the tens of thousands.