Zodiacal Light

[bkm2304]

Hi all,
For the first time ever I saw the Zodiacal light in the early pre dawn on 27/5/23. It was so prominent I thought it was headlights over beyond the hills. Jupiter just above the horizon looks like its the nucleus of a comet.

Some of you may know that Queen guitarist, Brian May, completed his PhD thesis on radial velocities of dust that forms the ZL reflections. He started collecting the data in the early 70"s and didn't get back to writing it up for nearly 40 years!

The link to his thesis is here:

https://spiral.imperial.ac.uk/handle/10044/1/1333

Nikon D7000, ISO 6400, F3.5. 10 secs. 8mm Fisheye.

Richard

[strongmanmike]

Cool capture Richard, great record :thumbsup:

From a clean air, truly dark sky the Zodical light looks unbelievable. It was super bright and spectacular from my observatory high up in the Tinderry mountains last New Moon but the most spectacular I have seen it was from Chillagoe, 3hrs drive inland from Cairns in the northern savannah of QLD. It was soooo bright, it was ridiculous, it was almost pure white :eyepop: and essentially covered all of Virgo at the time so we didn't bother observing galaxies :lol: The extension to the ZL is known as the Zodiacal Bridge which is a fainter thinner band that extends from where the triangular Zodiacal light ends and follows the entire Ecliptic and in winter it bisects the bright hub of the Milky Way, aaaand in the mix there is also the Gegenschein, the brightening of the Zodical bridge at the anti Solar point. If you are lucky enough to have a super dark unobstructed 360deg view of the sky with good transparency and low solar activity, maaan, it is an awe inspiring sight to end all awe-inspiring sights IMO...:)

I have managed to see the Gegenschein and detect the faint Zodical Bridge from my Eagleview site in the Tinderry Mountains but sheesh...the attached picture (minus the colour in the Milky Way) is very close to what the sky looked like naked eye from Chillagoe...it was unbelievable and I will never forget it :)

Mike

[Averton]

Great sight Richard!

[Dave882]

Wow very cool

[bkm2304]

Thanks guys. Yes Mike it really is something to see. Living most of my life in the suburbs it was a non-starter to even glimpse the ZL. But up in the bush with only a bit of a light dome from Newcastle bothering me, the ZL is outstanding.

Do have a browse through Brian May's thesis. It is very well written, and in places rather quirky, so you can see what he's up to even if one is not a radial velocity expert!;)

Richard

[strongmanmike]

If you are still in Glen William, that's a pretty dark location (not far from Lostock where the IIS astro camps used to happen), the ZL would be quite prominent from there.

Mike

[Stephane]

Wow, that’s really awesome!