Great post Kim, thanks. Isn't the Gegenshein at the anti-solar point? It's also very subtle, so I'm thinking that at the time you looked for it, it may have been too low to overcome atmospheric extinction. The brightest zodiacal light I've ever seen was when I was photographing comet Hale-Bopp. I just turned around to face the west, and HOLY COW! There it was, like I'd never seen it before. Beautiful sight. On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 6:12 AM, Kim Hyatt <kimharch@cut.net> wrote:

I just went outside to check out the zodiacal light. It is very bright and obvious in the east this morning, extending well past the Milky Way to the Pleiades. I then walked around the house to see if it is as visible in the west, and I've never seen it so bright in the opposite part of the sky as this morning! While I couldn't say with certainty that I could see the Geggenschein as a distinctly brighter region, the zodiacal band itself is very bright. From my home the western sky has a rather high horizon. Combined with my eyes having not been fully dark-adapted, I'm thinking that's why I couldn't clearly see a brighter region of the band where the Geggenschien should be. However, I was shocked to see a very bright shaft of light extending above the horizon, at the same angle as the ZB right in the middle of it. I've never heard of or observed this phenomenon before. Then I realized that the ZB just happens to extend directly above Bryce Point and the light had to be from a car arriving to watch the sun-rise from there. Sure enough, that shaft of light soon blinked off.