"Arizona-based amateur astronomer Andrew McCarthy shared the now-viral image on Reddit, calling it the "most preposterously fake-looking real photo I've ever captured." The gorgeous image, fittingly titled "The Fall of Icarus" - and which you can buy as a print to support McCarthy right here - shows "my friend transiting an active region on the Sun in freefall," he wrote in the caption."
"In a behind-the-scenes video posted to his Instagram, McCarthy explained how he pulled it off. He "set up a bunch of telescopes in the desert" and instructed his friend, YouTuber and skydiver Gabriel Brown, to leap from an ultralight aircraft perfectly positioned between him and the Sun. "When the time was right, I told him to jump," McCarthy wrote in the video."
"It's a fitting time to capture the solar surface. Our star has entered its most active phase of its 11-year cycle, triggering fierce solar storms. This week, it unleashed the strongest solar flare this year so far, causing radio blackouts across Africa and Europe. All of this solar activity also makes for a very different - but equally stunning - photo opp, in the form of " abundant" displays of auroras lighting up the night sky as far south as Florida."
Arizona-based amateur astronomer Andrew McCarthy captured a viral image showing a skydiver transiting the Sun, titled "The Fall of Icarus." McCarthy set up telescopes in the desert and instructed YouTuber and skydiver Gabriel Brown to leap from an ultralight aircraft positioned between the camera and the Sun. McCarthy photographed a stream of exposures and captured Brown silhouetted against the Sun's active, churning surface. McCarthy shared a behind-the-scenes Instagram video and posted the image on Reddit. The Sun is in a peak activity phase of its 11-year cycle, producing strong flares, radio blackouts, and widespread auroras.
Read at Futurism
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]