Chilean Sunset: 3/16/2012

Now THIS is a sunset:

I stayed late at Cerro Calan last Friday and managed to capture this shot (among others) of the setting Sun. We are facing west here and you can see the Sun setting behind a distant mountain. I'll admit to not realizing there was a mountain there- the smoggy haze is usually sufficient to obscure such distant objects (about 24mi/39km away).

The city of Santiago is technically in the picture, but since it's dark most doesn't show up. However, to the left of the sunset you may notice a very tall building infront of a pair of hills. That building is the Gran Torre Costanera, which is the tallest building in South America. The hills behind is Cerro San Cristobal, which is home to the largest public park in Santiago (Parque Metropolitano).

Update: Lironah of Iron Wolf Games tweaked the image with Photoshop to get this:

Though some of the subtlety in the sky colors and distant mountains is lost, it's now far easier to see the city. I should mention that this photo was taken with an iPhone 3GS camera so it's quite impressive that so much detail is captured in a low-light situation.