The Fabled Zodiacal Light

In the pre-dawn sky this morning the zodiacal light was a huge, tapering pyramid of shimmering silvery light stretching up almost 50° into the heavens; its core glowing brightly enough to extinguish many of the fainter stars within it.

The Ghostly Gegenschein

Owing to the encroachment of light pollution, sighting the gegenschein has almost become mythical and certainly makes me appreciate what an immense privilege it is to be observing under skies so dark and transparent that one can see faint, diffuse, oval glow around midnight. 

The Green Flash

After watching hundreds of Kalahari sunsets I saw the green flash yesterday evening and it was every bit as beautiful and exciting to see as I had imagined.

Dung Beetles and the Milky Way

Dung beetles have a tiny brain – it is several times smaller than a match head and contains fewer than a million neurons. Yet within this tiny brain lies a complex sky compass that employs sophisticated celestial navigation skills.

The Belt of Venus

One of the most delicately beautiful things you can see in the sky is Earth’s shadow cast up into the sky. Next time you’re watching a sunset on a cloudless evening, turn around to see this little-known but utterly gorgeous atmospheric phenomenon.