Every March, for just five days, something rare happens in the night sky of the Northern Hemisphere: both arms of the Milky Way can be seen above the horizon on the same night. Not at the same time, but at different hours of the same night.
First rises the winter arch, a fainter and more diffuse band of stars. Then, as the Earth rotates, the summer arch appears, carrying the galactic core — that dense river of light that astrophotographers chase.
Together they form the so-called Milky Way double arch, and photographing it well is a race against the weather, the moon, and light pollution.
Ángel Fux, a photographer born in Paris in 1998 who specializes in night mountain landscapes, has been chasing this phenomenon for years.
In March 2026, she climbed to an altitude of 13,800 feet, spent a night on a peak between Italy and Switzerland in temperatures as low as -18°F, and brought back an image that NASA selected in April for its Astronomy Picture of the Day gallery.
A Summit That Photographers Never Visit
Fux had already photographed the double arch in 2025 from the Gornergrat, at an altitude of 10,200 feet in the Swiss Pennine Alps. The experience was enough to make her want to go further.
Her goal for this year was Dent d’Hérens, a 13,684-foot peak rising just behind the Matterhorn, on the border between Italy and Switzerland.
The appeal of the location was clear: it offers a perspective of the Matterhorn that almost no one has ever photographed, because those who access that summit are mountaineers, not photographers, let alone at night.
Astrophotography equipment and the gear required for high-altitude mountaineering are, in Fux’s words, “simply incompatible in most cases.”
To make the expedition viable, she contacted her trusted mountain guide, Richard Lehner, in September 2025, six months before the optimal observation window.
What followed was months of planning that included helicopter logistics, coordination with Swiss and Italian teams, and a search for a weather window that never quite cooperated.
The Week That Almost Ruined Everything
The week the March window opened turned out to be one of the windiest Switzerland had recorded in months. An accident in Engelberg, where the wind damaged a cable car, made headlines. At an altitude of 13,100 feet, with the terrain exposed, those conditions would have been outright dangerous.
Lehner decided to delay the departure.
Added to this was another bureaucratic obstacle: March 19 is a public holiday in Catholic Swiss cantons, and AirZermatt does not operate non-emergency flights on that day.
The window for photographing the phenomenon was already narrow, and one of the few viable days was now off the table.
The solution came from the Italian side. Since Dent d’Hérens straddles the border, an Italian helicopter operator could legally fly on that day.
The final plan was more complex: AirZermatt would transfer them to the border, and from there the Italian team would drop them off at the summit. The same handoff would happen in reverse come morning.
While resolving these unexpected issues, Fux spent three nights acclimating on the Gornergrat.
They were nights of little sleep and mounting nerves. During a practice session with the camera at 10,200 feet, the Nikon Z6 II showed images on the screen for an hour and a half without actually saving anything to the card.
The images appeared on the screen, but were not saved. This is a documented problem with mirrorless cameras in extreme temperatures, though she had never experienced it.
The solution was as basic as it was uncertain: turn the equipment off and on, and check from time to time that the shots were actually being stored.
The Night on the Summit — and a Third Arch Nobody Expected
On Thursday afternoon, the helicopter dropped them off at the summit: Fux, Lehner, and her son Arnaud.
When the sound of the rotor died down in the distance, a feeling of finality settled over them. Fux would later write on her blog — there was no turning back until dawn.
The forecast indicated temperatures between 0 and -2°F. What they found was worse. After 11:00 p.m., the wind picked up, and the wind chill plunged to between -13 and -18°F.
Stepping outside the tent without a rope was out of the question: the ice cornices surrounding the summit meant that any misstep could be fatal.
The team had brought a system of ropes and harnesses; Fux was roped up at all times when she stepped outside.
The shooting schedule was strict. The winter arch was photographed between 8:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. Then, a break of several hours. The summer arch began to appear starting at 2:30 a.m. The shooting proceeded as planned.
When the light pollution coming from the Italian side — from the direction of Milan, detectable even at 13,800 feet — decreased slightly toward dawn, Fux noticed something in the frame she hadn’t planned for.
While reviewing her shot of the winter arch, she saw a faint oval glow crossing the frame in the opposite direction of the sun.
It was the Gegenschein, also known as the counterglow or zodiacal counterglow: an optical phenomenon produced by the reflection of sunlight on interplanetary dust, at the point in the sky directly opposite the sun. It is so faint that it rarely appears in photographs.
It was there, visible even in the raw files. What had started as a project to capture a double arch became an image with three: the winter arch of the Milky Way, the summer arch with the galactic core, and the Gegenschein stretched over them like a diffuse ring.
An Image that Caught NASA’s Eye
After more than 40 hours of processing, the result is a photograph of the Matterhorn seen from Dent d’Hérens — an almost unprecedented angle — with three arches of light superimposed over it.
In April 2026, NASA included it in its daily selection of astronomical images. The APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) is one of the most widely followed astronomy outreach programs in the world, by both amateurs and professionals.
Fux’s parents, who had followed the entire expedition with worry, asked to be the first to receive a large-format print.
Fux expressed concern about light pollution, which continues to increase year after year. Even at an altitude of 13,800 feet, the glow rising from the Italian plains was more intense than in 2025.
Those conditions, she wrote, meant that what she had captured might never be replicated — not from that location, not with that quality, not under the same circumstances.
