27/02/2019
When I first discovered Lake Pukaki it was merely an accident. A few friends and I were on our way to Mount Cook National Park and were in search of a free place to rest our heads that night. It turns out that we had stumbled across what would be my favorite campsite in New Zealand.
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That first night we camped there the sky was covered by a gloomy overcast, but that didn’t stop the bright, turquoise glacier lake water from showing off.
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It wasn’t until a week or so later when I found out that Lake Pukaki sits in the middle of an International Dark Sky Reserve, making it one of the best places in the world to stargaze. I tracked my calendar to figure out when the next new moon would be in order to see the Milky Way at its full potential.
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This was the result. The Milky Way, framed by snowcapped mountain peaks, had proudly spread herself across the sky, above the lake. To our right there was a bright flash of colors: blue, red, green, repeat. We waited for the light to rotate thinking it was just a satellite, but when it didn’t move for hours we got curious.
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The prominent Southern Cross constellation includes the star Sirius, the second nearest start to earth. Light is made up of all colors of the rainbow. When a star gets close enough to earth, the journey of its light through the atmosphere breaks its starlight into its different component colors. SO CRAZY!
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Oh yeah, and that yellow light spilling over the mountain peaks in the first photo, thats not light pollution. Thats the planet VENUS setting!!
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Our earth is so amazing, what a show!
@ Lake Pukaki, New Zealand
