Sky jewels over the Namibian highest
Sky jewels over the Namibian highest – annotated
On this calm nightscape portrait you can find so many jewels of virgin dark Namibian sky. Looking from right, the far massif is Brandberg, the highest mountain of Namibia. Just over that, in the right upper corner, a faint anti-solar point known as Gegenschein appears in the starry foreground. A bit lower, just over the Brandberg, you can notice green hue caused by atmospheric airglow. Getting to center of the image, very far Swakopmund and Welvis Bay cities illuminate the dusty air close to horizon, while a “flamy” pink Gum nebula slowly rises above there. Two bright galaxies of the southern sky – Large and Small Magellanic clouds – are such prominent. But these galaxies are not only two on the image. The Milky Way is another one, rising just over the horizon and giving us more spectacular “jewels”, especially emission nebulae in the Orion constellation or open star clusters as the beautiful Pleiades or large Hyades. But even two more galaxies are on the left: elliptic Andromeda galaxy and a bit fainter Triangulum galaxy. Of course, among all the rest, I cannot forget to mention the well known California nebula just between Andromeda galaxy and Orion. So many jewels, enjoy it on the annotated version of the view…
Speaking of Brandberg, it is really one of top places in the world to visit. The dome-shaped massif is result of a granitic intrusion during Early Cretaceous rifting about 130 million years ago, that led to the opening of the South Atlantic ocean. The highest point of the massif, the Königstein, stands at 2,573 m (8,442 ft) above sea level and on the way you shouldn’t miss hundreds of unique ancient rock paintings of traditional Bushmen (San people), especially the most famous White lady.
Image was captured on 21st September 2015 during Safra-Go.cz expedition. Used Canon 6D Baader IR modified, Samyang 24 mm, f2.8, ISO 10000, 28×15 seconds panorama from tripod.
