Zodiacal Light and the Gegenschein

[Phil Hart]

I ducked out early on the last morning of AAIC on the Gold Coast, heading away for three nights of challenging but rewarding night sky photography. A lot more driving than I originally planned, but the weather models put me in the right place each time for three clear nights in a row.

Thanks heaps to Anthony Wesely, Terry Cuttle, Tony Dutton and JJ for their local advice that helped me with the location scouting/planning. In particular I wouldn't have headed up Pyramid Rock on the last night without that literally last minute advice that there were 360 views at the top.

My website has the high quality images linked to full-res on SmugMug:

Zodiacal Light and the Gegenschein: August 2013 (http://philhart.com/content/zodiacal-light-and-gegenschein-august-2013)

Kudos to anybody with the time and inclination to actually read all of that long and self-indulgent blog post! ;)

Images processed with Lightroom, panorama creation using PtGui Pro. Getting smooth(-ish) results has been tricky for some of them. And of course there's plenty more to process, as always..

Thanks for looking!
Phil

[gregbradley]

Beautiful shots Phil.

I particularly like the last wide view one. Is that lit up from a moon or from a sunrise? Its hard to tell.

Greg.

[Phil Hart]

Thanks Greg. It's just last quarter moonrise.. I'm unlikely to create a composite of stars and sunlight! ;)

[gregbradley]

Thanks Phil. I wasn't implying it was a composite just thought it may have been the first hint of dawn. I've imaged that before and you can still capture the MW if you are fast.

Very nice.

Greg.

[h0ughy]

great results Phil, top shelf results

[MortonH]

Love the panorama.

[Phil Hart]

Thanks houghy and MortonH! :)

Phil

[multiweb]

That's a really nice collection Phil and a great write-up. I actually saw the Gegenschein visually at Coonabarabran once. Lachlan McDonald pointed it to me. I thought it was high clouds or light pollution. It's very faint but obvious and you can only see it when the milkyway wraps all around the horizon.

[Phil Hart]

Thanks for taking the time to read the post Marc.. makes a day spent writing it up worthwhile ;).

I can see the Gegenschein regularly at the right times of year, even from the ASV dark sky site near Heathcote in central Victoria. As you say, it needs to be well clear of the Milky Way which rules out most of winter and not too low in the sky which rules out most of summer from down south (with the Gegenschein at low ecliptic elevations in the north). There is a bit of an art to viewing it and the rest of the zodiacal band as well.. you almost look for where the sky is darker first to notice the areas that are brighter relative to those. But it's easy to confirm that you are seeing the real thing as you can identify the location in the sky where you see it and verify that it is in fact at the anti-solar point.

cheers
Phil

[dutch2]

Brilliant photos, great location.
Well done.
BTW, it was your Shooting Stars e-book that got me started in Astrophotography, so much appreciated.
:thumbsup::thumbsup:

[seeker372011]

ethereal images, especially that last panorama.

[Phil Hart]

Sweet.. inspiration and advice :). Glad it's working for you!



Thanks! Always interesting to see which ones people like as their favourite.

Phil

[CapturingTheNight]

Fabulous images as I said on facebook Phil :thumbsup: That last one is a cracker. Certainly worth the climb. Also really love the green airglow on one side and red on the other with that sublime Milky Way running straight through the center of the first one.

[RobF]

Beautiful Phil. I think you might have been the first person to ever point the gegenschein out to me actually at SPSP 2010 from memory. Love those shots. Why the extra trip to St George by the way? To get the wetland shots and darkest of dark skies?

[Phil Hart]

Cheers Greg. You're one of just a few people who inspired me to do more with panoramas than I have in the past.. thanks! Certainly have been a few surprises (and expected frustrations) once it came to processing these.



Thanks Rob. Gegenschein is certainly there more than people realise.. just need to know 'how' to look for it. I wanted dark skies.. a long way from anywhere.. so that it would be obvious that light pollution wasn't part of the sky brightness.. to show that airglow quickly becomes the limiting factor. St George was certainly far enough to achieve that.. perhaps a bit too far.. it was a long drive there and back! :lol:

Phil

[SkyViking]

Wonderful and inspiring images Phil. The two views of the smoke filled valleys are my favourites. It must have been a great trip, well worth the drive :)

[iceman]

Beautiful work Phil, love that last one!

Top shelf!

[Octane]

As mentioned on FB, love this set. Excellent work. The 6D is really doing great things there. :)

H

[Paul Haese]

The pano is sooweet Phil. The rest are good too but the pano is superb.

[Phil Hart]

Thanks Rolf, Mike, H and Paul. Appreciate you taking the time for a look and your feedback is very encouraging! :thumbsup:

Phil

[multiweb]

You certainly drive a long way and aren't scared to get your feet wet. The results are a testament to your dedication. Soggy lake/river banks in the dark is where I'd draw the line. You don't want to do that in northern QLD. :scared:

[ourkind]

Beautiful work Phil! As always!! :thumbsup:

[Phil Hart]

Lakes and rivers in Northern Queensland give me the heebie-jeebies. I definitely wouldn't be doing anything like this there! I'm much happier in cold environments than in the tropics! :D



Thanks Carlos!

Phil

[Lester]

All outstanding views IMO Phil. Thanks for the views. Inspires me to do more.

[alexch]

Excellent series, Phil. No. 2 is my favourite - it sets a very nice mood. The last pano is also very very nice but I can't help but want to move it to the left, to complete the Milky Way arch...

Nice result and a very good guessing of the weather!

Cheers,
Alex

[Phil Hart]

Thanks Lester!



Thanks for the comments Alex. That last panorama is tricky to crop.. I've got the moon rising on the left and more of the Milky Way out the right but if I show it all it gets too skinny. Attached some more options..

Phil

[alexch]

I see... Considering the lack of interest in the right-hand side landscape, your original crop works best.
Did you try various projections? It sometimes helps if I choose mercator or stereographic in PTGUI.

[Phil Hart]

Thanks for the tip.. this was Stereographic Projection but I could do a lot more playing than the little I have so far.. but that will be a job for another day!

[stevous67]

Well done Phil, a beautiful series so far! I found them all amazing. :eyepop:

Steve :thumbsup: