Zodiacal Light in the Australian Outback

From the photographer: “Zodiacal light is a lesser known night sky phenomenon, but from a truly dark site it is remarkable.

It is the dust in our solar system, spread along the ecliptic plane (through the zodiacs) and illuminated by the Sun’s light. It is brightest around dawn and dusk when the sun is at a shallow angle under the horizon, and best captured in the evening around the spring equinox.

I took this image at the very beginning of the night towards the western horizon, and being so near to the equator (latitude of 24 degrees south) it meant the light stretched up almost vertically from the desert landscape.”