Date: 26 Sep 2006 19:29:11
From: Willie R. Meghar
Subject: Zodiacal Light & Gengenschein
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The zodiacal light was *very* prominent a couple of mornings ago.
After noticing it, the following day I read up on the phenomena and
found that zodiacal light in the morning sky tends to be at its best
around the autumnal equinox. It looks like I picked the right time to
be out in the early morning hours;-)
Anyway, after noticing and making note of the strong zodiacal light,
my reading indicated that this might be a good time to look for the
gegenschein.
Yesterday and last night I had an extremely clean and transparent sky.
To make a longer story short, I succeeded in seeing the gegenschein
from my rural backyard. At first it was difficult to see; but after a
while it kind of grew on me and 'difficult' became 'easy'.
Anyway, for those interested, a more thorough write-up is in my
astronomy blog (see link in signature). Anyone with good enough skies
might want to try for these large, naked-eye objects. The word
'faint' works reasonably well for the gegenschein. The zodiacal light
is *much* brighter and *very easy* to see.
Willie R. Meghar
http://meghar.blogspot.com/
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