Zodiacal light in town!

by Jamie Dillon


It was last Friday night, the 5th, when Liam and I were riding home thru our neighborhood, bearing Japanese food, when there was the first phase of the zodiacal light, right over the rooftops.

The zodiacal light and I had gotten acquainted in the years when I drove home past Moss Landing and would stop to see an unobstructed sunset without lights. Saw the purple pyramid several happy times. But I had no idea it would be visible in town.

This was at sunset, just around 1800, and the spike of light was about 20 deg long, in the right place, with the right angle and just that gleam I remembered. Later, there was too much glare to pick up the pyramid. Still, it's encouraging that the dust lanes in the ecliptic are around.