Spring View

Photographed under impressively dark sky of Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii, this film exposure with a home-made 4X5 large format camera has captured the spring sky as seen from the northern hemisphere. Note the faint pale blue zodiacal light (sunlight reflection from the dust in the Solar System plane) which is stretched across the sky. A slightly brighter region of the zodiacal band is an oval glow directly opposite the Sun and known as the gegenschein (German for “counter glow”) which might be seen with unaided-eye under very dark skies.