What a beautiful sky right? There are not many places on this Earth or at least where the majority of the people are that you can see the sky at its maximum star visibility due to light pollution. Luckily there are still places unaffected by pollution so that amateur astronomers like ourselves are able to observe the night sky and discover more of our mysterious galaxy.
Looking at this photo might be a bit confusing for some. For one thing, there are so many stars out in the sky but it seems that the Sun had just set. Man, if this is how our evenings are supposed to be everyday then we really messed up the Earth! Well, not really. This photo is actually taken while the Sun is on the opposite side of the Earth. What?! Yup, if it weren't for all the stars in the sky, then all you would be seeing is a black photo.
Well, then why does the bottom part of the sky seem so bright, almost like a sunset? Well this is the result of the interplanetary dust particles in space. Interplanetary dust is basically leftovers from asteroids or comets that have passed by; their residue due to its fiery path toward the Sun. So, there is really enough dust in space that the Sun's light reflects off of these particles. The faint glow that you see across the sky is called the gegenschein. That is basically a very dim spot in the sky which shows the reflection of the Sun's light on the interplanetary dust. Since the dust particles orbit on the ecliptical plane, the Sun's apparent path in the sky, that is why the gegenschein is in a diagonal like fashion.
The pretty orange part of the sky would be known as the zodiacal light, also known as the false dawn. This is also due to the light reflecting from the interplanetary dust particles in space and is easier to see than the gegenschein.
Other than that, with the millions of billions of stars in the sky, I don't think I can decipher even one of them, either that or I would be very wrong. Anyways, being able to see such a phenomenon such as this one is one of the many things on my bucketlist. Try making it one of yours, it could be life-changing. Sweet star-gazing!
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