Twinkling is the air's doing. Above it, stars are steady points in true colours, which changes how you look on Selka and Veyra, and explains why pictures of bright planets show no stars.
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Most travellers only change ships at Halcyon. Stay two days instead: walk the Promenade, tour the violet-lit gardens and the shipyards, and end at the Long Window at dusk.
Windows to Tessaly still open every 26 days, but each now carries an express, and the equinox season gets crossings of its own. What changes for fares, and how to plan.
Liora Venn joined one of the first small groups allowed into Veyra's ice cavern: a slow descent, a lake beneath clear ice, cliffs full of light and a silence nobody wanted to break.
Where to start, what to look for and how to train your eyes: a first-night route round the Lantern's regions from Brightwater, from the Twin Fires to the faint Veil.
The ocean world has opened its Sunward Chain to visitors for the first time: 2,000 permits a year, drawn by ballot. How to apply, and what the islanders ask in return.
Which ring, which side, which wall? A former hull inspector on choosing a berth on a liner or on Halcyon, and on which upgrades are worth your marks.
The ocean world has opened its Sunward Chain to visitors for the first time: 2,000 permits a year, drawn by ballot. How to apply, and what the islanders ask in return.
Tessaly's orange moon hides its stars and the giant overhead. Fewer than thirty people a year go down to Amber Camp: here is what they do there, and how to join them.
Green curtains, red fringes and seven weeks late in Calder's year: how to watch the aurora from a night flight out of Port Kestrel, or looking down from Halcyon's Long Window.
Nine days to Tessaly, eleven to Orrin: the new timetable, the fares and the equinox season, explained.
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Twinkling is the air's doing. Above it, stars are steady points in true colours, which changes how you look on Selka and Veyra, and explains why pictures of bright planets show no stars.
Where to start, what to look for and how to train your eyes: a first-night route round the Lantern's regions from Brightwater, from the Twin Fires to the faint Veil.
Orrin's noon sky is butterscotch and its sunsets cold blue. Our science correspondent explains the dust behind it, where to watch near Corran and how to photograph it through a visor.
Which ring, which side, which wall? A former hull inspector on choosing a berth on a liner or on Halcyon, and on which upgrades are worth your marks.
Why Orrin's northern dunes are dark basalt that looks blue from orbit, how they creep a few metres a year, and how to walk them safely in a pressure suit.
Four days and 38 km along the rim of the Gediz canyon, from Corran's dome past Bolívar Pass to the view of Mount Halvard. Suits, huts, air, water, packing and fitness, day by day.
Windows to Tessaly still open every 26 days, but each now carries an express, and the equinox season gets crossings of its own. What changes for fares, and how to plan.
Nobody lands on Kesh. From a shaded lounge behind a heat shield, a former hull inspector watches the furnace world's glowing night side and explains how the pass works.
One sailing a year, forty days out and twelve guest berths at Hollin Station: aboard the Long Swan to Mirren's ice mountains, nitrogen plains and stacked blue haze.
Fourteen days to Tessaly, bread before the first watch, three thousand books and a captain who calls speed a fuel bill: the second week aboard the Reach's slowest liner.
Every photograph in this magazine is real, and none of it was taken in the Reach.
The pictures come from NASA: from its Cassini, Curiosity, New Horizons and Spitzer missions, and from astronauts in orbit. We caption them as the places of the Reach, and every caption carries its credit. More about this magazine.
