By BBC News World
08 Mar 2024, 16:44 PM EST
A colossal column of plasma that extends for some 200,000 kilometers above the south pole of the Sun.
This is what Eduardo Schaberger, an amateur astrophotographer from Santa Fe, Argentina, captured with his camera.
The striking images show a rarely observed prominence, since most of these phenomena are located near the solar equator.
In order to include the vastness of the plasma column in a single photo, Eduardo had to rotate his camera, later adjusting the orientation of the image through editing to accurately represent its majesty.
“Solar photography is really very difficult to do, because there is a big problem: when you want to photograph the Sun in detail, you have to do it by seeing it through the Earth’s atmosphere,” Schaberger explains to BBC Mundo.
He assures that “it requires a lot of work, a lot of patience, waiting for those moments of stability in the atmosphere to be able to release the capture and be lucky that we have some frames that are of good quality.”
Atmospheric turbulence, a significant challenge in high-resolution astrophotography, tends to distort the image, an effect that is exacerbated when photographing the sun, as its heat causes the different layers of the atmosphere to heat up and churn.
To counteract these difficulties, Eduardo used a technique known as “lucky imaging“.
This method consists of capturing video sequences with numerous frames in the hope of coinciding with moments of atmospheric stability.
He then meticulously selected and stacked between 70 and 100 of these frames to decrease digital noise, thus improving image clarity.
Eduardo’s passion for the cosmos dates back to his childhood, when he was enthralled observing the night sky, marveling at the mysteries hidden in the stars.
Today, armed with his own equipment, he is dedicated to capturing the splendor of the solar system, focusing especially on the sun.
He describes each photo shoot as an encounter with the sublime, where immense sunspots, filaments that dance across the surface, and prominences that rise thousands of miles into space reveal the magnificence and power of the Sun.
Keep reading:
* Scientists discovered that a part of the Sun has “detached itself”, how does it affect us?
* The impacts that solar flares have on our planet
* They detect strange waves in the Sun that travel faster than was thought “possible”, defying the laws of physics
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