The Night Sky and the Zodiacal Light at the Grand Canyon

There's no shortage of spectacular scenery at the Grand Canyon. The vast, deep, dynamic landscape cascading from the miles of rim-side trails offers jaw-dropping scenery with every look. Sunsets and sunrises offer even more magical views for the visitors that plan longer days. And during my lucky stay overnight on the South Rim, the almost pitch-black darkness enforced throughout the National Park guaranteed some of the most stunning views imaginable of our planet's star-filled sky.

On a moonless night I witnessed the Milky Way stretching overhead from the southern to the northern horizons, guiding my attention along the illuminated path its name connotates. The Big Dipper lay low to the north, providing an easy guide to the North Star, Polaris. I was able to discern Andromeda, Earth's nearest neighboring galaxy, after approximating its location thanks to finding another constellation, Cassiopeia, whose distinctive W-shape points to it. Sirius, the brightest star in our night sky, outshined our solar system's two largest planets, Saturn and Jupiter, also overhead. But clouds slowly drifted across the panorama, shortening what might have been a long night of stargazing.

I awoke at four o'clock and was excited to discover that the sky had cleared. After six hours of rotation, my position on Earth was probably not facing the densest section of the Milky Way. Andromeda was still present, except that after the Earth had rotated over six hours, the galaxy was higher and had appeared to also rotate. Jupiter had risen significantly and was almost directly overhead. My photographs captured this gas giant crossing the sky near the Pleiades, a group of stars in the constellation Taurus. Another constellation, Orion, was easy to find with its prominent belt of stars and its nebula that defines the center of a sword.

In addition, the Morning Star, Venus, had joined Jupiter and Saturn as another solar system guest. Venus was of course close to the eastern horizon, where the sun would soon be rising. But she was also enveloped in light emanating from below the horizon, shining upward in a triangular path. For the very first time, I was observing the zodiacal light. Unsurprisingly, the phenomenon is also called false dawn.

The glow is the effect of sun light scattering off an interplanetary dust cloud within our solar system. One of the best times to observe it is in the autumn, close enough to the mid September day I encountered it. The name zodiacal describes the narrow belt on either side of the Sun's ecliptic, or path. It's in this band where the light is visible.

Very quickly, real dawn finally started to break with the eastern horizon casting a soft glow. The stars slowly began dimming, the faintest even disappearing. At last it was time to watch the sun rise over the superstar of the park, the Grand Canyon.