The dark skies of Creede are a welcome change from the urban murkiness of Santa Fe. Last night the measured sky brightness here was sqml=21.69*, which is very dark indeed. There were some clouds still skating across the sky, but a brief opening provided a view of the Zodiacal light over Bristol Head. The Zodiacal Light is a diffuse glow caused by sunlight scattering from dust particles in Earth's orbital plane. Most of the dust is believed to originate from Mars.
Sony A7iii + Sony FE 20mm f/1.8 G + softon filter. ISO 1600, 30 s
The yellow line in the chart below represents the Ecliptic, Earth's orbital plane.
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| credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com |
The following night, an hour earlier:
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| Sony A7iii + 20mm f/1.8 G + sparkle-6 filter. ISO1600, 30 s. |
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| Big Dipper |
*Sky brightness is measured in units of magnitude per square arcsec (mag/arsec2) or MPSAS. A device called the Sky Quality Meter-L (sqml) manufactured by the company Unihedron is used to measure this quantity.
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