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Venus, Mercury, and the Zodiacal Light. This was taken just before dawn on the Great Barrier Island, New Zealand. The island is a Dark Sky Sanctuary, and amazingly dark. Since the planets Venus and Mercury are closer to the sun than earth, you are looking sunward to see then. As a result the best dark times to see them are just before dawn or just after sunset. This was just before dawn. What caught my attention was how well the Zodiacal light showed up at this time. When seen just before dawn it’s called the “False Dawn”. It’s a faint diffuse roughly triangular light or glow that appears to extend from the sun along the zodiac, straddling the ecliptic. It is caused by sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust in the plane of the dolor system. (Wikipedia) I thought it showed up nicely here. Check out the labeled image as well. This is a stack of 10 images stacked in SLS, 23 mm, 15 sec., f/2.8, ISO 12,800. Many thanks to Carol @darkskysanctuary for guiding me there and drawing my attention to to planets that night. Carol, you are a great guide! Cheers, Wayne
