Look East Now for Eerie Cone of Light: 'False Dawn' of Washington, Oregon, the Coast

Published 9/11/24 at 7:15 p.m.
By Andre' GW Hagestedt, Oregon Coast Beach Connection

(Cannon Beach, Oregon) - One heckuva fun 'n freaky sight may be popping up in Oregon and Washington night skies right about now, and it could be something you've seen before but just never noticed. Even Oregon coast or Washington coast skies after dark could be graced by this curiosity of light called the Zodiacal Light – or in this case the False Dawn. (Above: Zodiacal Light at Bend, Oregon, courtesy David Lane)

Right now through the fall equinox (in about ten days) is the best time to see the Zodiacal Light on the eastern edges of the horizon. You'll need dark skies to spot it, which will be easy for coastal areas like Westport, Long Beach, Bandon, Seaside or Lincoln City. Those in Portland, Seattle, Salem or Eugene will need to get out into the country a bit.

What you'll see near dawn is an eerie cone shape of light, one which can look a bit like the glow of a city on the horizon. For anyone in the northern hemisphere, EarthSky.org said to start watching the early morning sky just before dawn, looking to the east.

“When it’s visible before dawn, many call it the false dawn,” EarthSky.org said.

However, what's really awesome sauce for the Washington or Oregon coast is during spring when it appears on the western horizon, then known as the false dusk because it comes just after sundown.

If there's an elongated beam – as there sometimes is – it may remind you of that Star Wars promo poster where that light saber shoots up into the sky. Mostly, however, it's a conical shape in the skies.

This photograph at the top was caught in Bend, Oregon.

Zolt LeVay Photography - False Dawn in Arizona, bumping into the Milky Way

Astronomers also say you should not bother with nights with a large moon present, which is coming right up in the next few days. There's another full moon in mid-October, but the light can sometimes be seen all the way into November.

What is the Zodiacal light? Interestingly, it's an outer space thing and not Earth weather-related.

“Zodiacal light is caused by sunlight reflecting off tiny dust particles in the inner solar system - the disintegrated remains of comets and asteroids,” says NASA. “Attempts to measure how dark space is using telescopes like Hubble have been thwarted by this ambient glow.”

Astronomers getting put upon by this have had to rely on NASA’s distant New Horizons spacecraft to observe the sky in the past.

“The faint background they measured is the equivalent of seeing a neighbor’s refrigerator light from a mile away,” NASA said.

Above: the Zodiacal Light in the eastern U.S., courtesy Stephen Rahn / Flickr

There's also some evidence the dust particles are coming from Mars and not comets. In recent years, NASA spacecraft Juno detected the red planet kicking up a lot of dust and much of it seemed to be aligned with where scientists had seen the debris of the false dawn / dusk phenomenon. More on Zodiacal Light in Oregon, Washington

Places to check out will be remote parts of the Long Beach Penninsula, Grayland Beach, Manzanita's Nehalem Spit, southern Pacific City, Cape Foulweather near Depoe Bay, the National Dunes Recreation Area between Florence and Reedsport, Cape Sebastian area, and the Samuel H. Boardman Corridor.

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Andre' GW Hagestedt is editor, owner and primary photographer / videographer of Oregon Coast Beach Connection, an online publication that sees over 1 million pageviews per month. He is also author of several books about the coast.

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