Don’t let these bright lights in the South Pole station gym (nice facilities, huh?) confuse you—it’s dark down there. Winter at the Pole means six months with no sunlight at all. Of course there are stars, lots of them in fact. And the moon still makes its appearances during winter, sometimes looking quite sun-like, as in the first photo below. In the bottom photo, you can see the faint image of the Milky Way in the background of the sky. Remember, practically everything we see in the night sky with our unaided eyes is a part of the Milky Way—this hazy band is from our viewpoint within the billions of stars that make up the disk of our galaxy. The Southern Hemisphere is generally best for getting a good view. But getting a great shot often involves being in the right place at the right time.
