Astrophotography duo unveil 140-megapixel photo of the Sun (4 photos + 1 video)

Through the combined efforts of two astrophotographers, Andrew McCarthy and Jason Genzel, space lovers can now easily consider in detail the fiery surface of the Sun, as well as the plasma "tornado" with a height of 14 planets Earth (about 180 thousand kilometers).





Before this project, McCarthy and Hansel had been admired each other's work and looked for opportunities to work together. In the end, when the weather conditions converged, they still managed to combine your individual skills to create something extraordinary. “He specializes in extracting incredible details from raw data, while my forte is creating large mosaic images of the Sun,” McCarthy told My Modern Met. — By combining our strengths, we were able, with the help of an amateur equipment to create incredible work that pushes the boundaries possible."



To get the final image, McCarthy made about 200,000 images of the Sun. Then, together with Hansel, they worked in within five days to process the data and compose the photo. Photo titled "Fusion of Helios" includes 90,000 shots McCarthy, as well as a photograph of the 2017 eclipse by Hansel. She was used to include elements that would otherwise be invisible. This kind of creativity requires precision and knowledge to get it right. satisfactory result, and it is clear that McCarthy and Hansel did everything possible to bring this exceptional masterpiece to the world.





“Shooting the Sun requires some creativity due to its very nature,” explains McCarthy. - Extraordinary range of tones, present in different layers of the solar atmosphere, means that neither one traditional type of photography is not able to cover them all. That's why some creative interpretation is needed.

In this case, the solar corona and background stars that would normally be invisible during a solar eclipse. Although this addition was an artistic device, the picture of Jason in the eclipse of 2017 paid careful attention to ensure that it corresponded to solar activity that day, and as a sample used an image from SOHO, the space-based solar observatory."



Astrophotographers hope their collaboration will encourage people learn more about our universe and what's going on in space - and for this they do not need to look directly at the Sun. By the way, if you I wonder how astrophotographers can safely take photos like this, You can read about this in McCarthy's detailed guide. And if want to see a larger version of "Fusion of Helios", take a look at Twitter McCarthy.

Bonus: the same solar "tornado" as high as 14 of our planets, which was observed by McCarthy