Today's Edition
KIRSTIN BERNABE (ABU DHABI)
In the heart of Abu Dhabi’s desert, there’s a spot so dark that the night sky comes alive — offering a clear, breathtaking view of the galaxy to those who are willing to wait. Expat Ralph Emerson De Peralta is among them, a patient stargazer and astrophotographer who camps out at one of the darkest places in the UAE to get a magical shot of the cosmos.
His latest work captured an unusual celestial view: the Milky Way in two arches. To the uninitiated, the stunning photo seemingly shows two separate Milky Ways — but how can there be two when there’s only one Milky Way, the galaxy that houses our solar system?
Explaining the “mystery” and why he considers the photo a bucket-list shot, De Peralta said this is the view of the Milky Way’s winter and summer arches, captured in a time-lapse panorama.
He drove to Abu Dhabi’s Al Quaa Desert — one of the darkest accessible spots in the country — in early April, hoping to catch the dual-arch Milky Way. He had to wait at least six hours.
“This is by far the most challenging time-blended landscape astrophotography image I’ve ever captured and edited. It’s not for the impatient, you need endurance and patience to pull this off,” he told Aletihad.
He took the shot from a single tripod location with a six-hour interval between capturing the winter and summer arches. He used a star tracker to snap the winter arch at 9pm and waited until 3am to click the summer side.
“This vision had been in my mind for weeks, and I finally made it a reality,” he said. The Science Behind the ViewEng. Ibrahim Ghonaimat of the International Astronomy Centre confirmed that the photo shows “two distinct sections of the Milky Way, photographed from the same location, but at different times of night”.
“They form two opposing arcs in the sky, which — when captured on the same night — create a panoramic blend of both the feint and bright halves of the Milky Way.”
March to early April is “a sweet spot” in the Earth’s orbital position, he said. “The winter Milky Way (October-April) is still just visible after sunset, while the summer Milky Way (March-September) core rises just before dawn.”
For those who wish to replicate the shot, however, it’s a bit too late now, the expert said. “After April 10–12, your chances rapidly decline due to seasonal transition and shorter nights,” he said.
Year-round Mission
For astrophotographers like De Peralta, any day could be a good day to capture the skies - and whenever he can, he heads to the desert, usually with other photographers who share the same passion for chasing the Milky Way.
“But sometimes, I go alone into the Abu Dhabi desert to take photos of the night sky. There’s nothing more inspiring than photographing the Milky Way, it’s my way of escaping the hustle and bustle of city life,” said the expat, who works as a civil engineer and has been living in Abu Dhabi for 19 years.
“Standing under the stars, I feel a quiet connection between us and the universe, a reminder that we are small, yet our dreams have no limits,” he said. Among his other stunning photos show star trails in circles, which were captured during the Eid Al Etihad holiday in 2024, and the Perseid meteor shower in August 2024.
Astrophotography may be personal to hobbyists like De Peralta, but for astronomy, such photos have both artistic and scientific value.
“They sit at the intersection of science and art. It’s storytelling with stars. Visual poetry. You’re combining two time periods into one image, so it’s not a literal representation of the sky,” Ghonaimat said.
“To an extent, it can be scientific. Such images demonstrate spatial orientation of the galaxy, help educate about seasonal visibility, and are used in outreach, astronomy presentations, and planetarium projections,” he added.
However, for raw scientific data analysis, astronomers rely on precise, timestamped, unblended images, the expert clarified. “So these panoramas are not scientific data, but they inspire science — and that’s just as valuable.”
