Sensing the spheres in Atacama desert
Sometimes there is a moment, which makes you feel the Earth stood still. Caused by the new indescribable feelings and the nature around, you are just experienced by totally remarkable instant. And if you have a good music, which completelly determines that moment, you know you are on the right place in the right time. This thing happened to me in the night 23/24 January 2015, when I travelled from La Silla observatory to Paranal across the 650km long Atacama desert of Chile. Having opened car with loud speakers in it, I was enjoying the great music from Enigma – Sensing the speres and gazing in the naturally dark skies in the middle of nowhere of the Atacama desert. Above me there was the gate of the night, the Milky way, arched from the far mountains and hiding spectacular hydrogen nebulae in the Orion and Vela constellations (despite the invisibility by eyes my modified camera captured it easily). Cirrus clouds partially hided the green hue of the sky above the horizon, caused by atmospheric airglow. Bright planet Jupiter took a place close to the Gegenschein. Two Magellanic clouds quietly guarded the night above my head. What is fascinating – just take a look under me or the car – there are shadows. Yes, the conditions were so great, that the shine of the Milky way and the rest of the sky is enough to cause a shadows under big objects!
Nobody nowhere, just the infinite desert with the right conditions for European southern observatories. Yes, I was poetically sensing the spheres above and under me in the moment. Used Canon 6D Baader IR Mod, Samyang 24 mm, f2.0, ISO 10000, 53×15 s stereographic projection panorama.
