Photo credit: Andrew McCarthy
Andrew McCarthy stands in a Florida wildlife refuge, eight miles from a SpaceX launchpad, gazing out at the horizon. His cameras are set up on a gravel road, ready to capture something never seen before: a rocket going through the Sun’s chromosphere, its plasma plume rippling across the surface of the star. On September 6, 2025, he becomes the first photographer to freeze a Falcon 9 in front of the Sun’s hydrogen-alpha flare.
Solar photography, especially in hydrogen-alpha, requires precision equipment and a deep understanding of the Sun’s crazy nature. Unlike standard white light shots which show a flat, featureless solar disk, hydrogen-alpha imaging reveals the chromosphere’s swirling plasma and magnetic storms. McCarthy used a specialized solar telescope and astronomy camera to peer into the Sun’s middle layer. The result is an orange canvas, alive with texture, with a dark silhouette of a rocket climbing into orbit.
- Superior Optics: 400mm(f/5.7) focal length and 70mm aperture, fully coated optics glass lens with high transmission coatings creates stunning images...
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McCarthy relied on other rocket-chasers to help him find his spot in the wildlife refuge west of Cape Canaveral. The Falcon 9, with 28 Starlink satellites, would launch at a specific time, its trajectory would align with the Sun for a brief moment. Timing was everything – too early or too late and the shot would be lost. His astronomy camera, synced to capture the transit, recorded the rocket’s ascent as its plume sent shockwaves through the chromosphere’s light, scattering it in beautiful patterns.
Earlier in 2025 he lost a lens to the corrosive plume of an Atlas V rocket while shooting from a restricted zone near a launchpad. That taught him the risks of proximity, but for this shot distance and precision were his friends. His Canon R5, with a solar filter and telephoto lens, captured a secondary image in white light but it pales in comparison to the hydrogen-alpha shot. The Canon image is nice but lacks the chromosphere’s detail – a reminder why his specialized setup was necessary.
His “Defeating Gravity” print is available at cosmicbackground.io in 11×14 and 50×62.5 inch formats, printed on archival Hahnemühle Photorag Giclée and C-type Fuji paper. A signed Certificate of Authenticity is also included, as is a numbered set of five big acrylic prints.
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