Volcanic Sky Over the Atacama Desert

From the photographer: “In this shot, taken from San Pedro de Atacama (Chile) on April 18th, 2022, a Martian-like night sky appears just after dusk. While the majestic dark sky with prominent constellations of Orion, Vela, or Southern Cross can be found along the Milky Way, both directions over the western and eastern horizons shine very redly. This is the result of light scattering on volcanic ash in the high atmosphere after the major eruption of the Tonga volcano (Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha’apai’s) on 15th January this year. The prominent red tint over the western horizon (bottom part) is caused by sunlight as the dust progressed. In the upper part (eastern) not so strong effect is caused by moonlight as the Moon is about to rise 15 minutes after the image was taken. Additional dusty phenomenon in the image is also the faint Zodiacal Light on right. As both Moon and Sun illuminated the upper atmosphere during the moment of shooting, also many satellites appeared in the sky (seen as light lines across the whole view).”

Technical details: Canon Ra, Sigma 35mm, f2.8, panorama of 41 single 10s exposures from a tripod.