Nice view

on Baikal.

Photos from Marina:






I wanted to take a picture of a shooting star, or night sky, but my camera is too weak to do that...

The Sky at Baikal

One of the most incredible things we saw on our trip to Baikal was the sky there. It sounds like something simple, but it was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen.

The night sky was ten times more brilliant than any I had seen in the US. The Milky Way was a wide band across the sky, and there were smaller ribbons splitting off from it. Many of us mentioned that looking at the sky over Baikal was like being in a planatarium, except it was real. There were so many stars in the sky that many of us couldn't identify simple constellations like the Big Dipper, because there were so many other little points of light between the major stars that we knew from home. Late at night, we were also treated to shooting stars which streaked across the sky.

The sky in the day was just as spectacular in its own way as the night sky. Baikal treated us to multiple rainbows, and the sunsets were fantastic. One evening in the East we were treated to a rainbow at sunset reflected in the lake. In the West the clouds blazed blue, purple, pink, and orange over the mountains, giving us a technicolor view of Baikal's beauty.