Video: 1 Minute on the Sun - Exclusive Footage of Solar 'Eruptions'

Astrophotographer Mark Johnston, vice president of the Phoenix Astronomical Society, studied the Sun with a home telescope at the end of August. Johnston managed to observe plasma arches rising from the star's surface to a height of 160,000 kilometers.

Johnston states, "For the video, I recorded about 100 clips, each with 540 frames taken at 25-second intervals, so the video presents real solar activity over approximately one hour. Some images in the video are blurry due to sudden changes in atmospheric visibility conditions. Overall visibility was good. All photos were taken from my backyard in Scottsdale, Arizona." In addition to the epic video, Johnston captured stunning images of solar activity.

“Each static frame requires 2,000 frames of high-speed video shot at 9 milliseconds of exposure. I then extract the 200 most focused frames and apply further sharpening,” he noted.