The Fall of Icarus: Skydiver’s Silhouette Crosses the Sun in a Stunning Astrophotograph

Astrophotographer Andrew McCarthy captured an extraordinary image he calls "The Fall of Icarus," showing skydiver Gabe Brown silhouetted as he fell across a highly active patch of the sun. The photograph combined precise piloting, carefully timed freefall and high-resolution hydrogen-alpha solar imaging to produce a single, unforgettable shot.

Planning a one-in-a-million shot

McCarthy and Brown developed the idea after experimenting with solar transits of aircraft and rockets. They realized a person could transit the solar disk only under a very narrow set of conditions: the sun had to be at the right altitude, the ultralight pilot needed to fly an exact line, and the skydiver had to exit at precisely the right moment while remaining within the telescope's narrow depth of field.

Optical and safety constraints

Optical physics imposed strict limits. Because McCarthy focused his telescopes near infinity, objects closer than a few miles begin to lose sharpness depending on aperture. The team calculated a morning "sweet spot" when the sun was low enough to allow aircraft alignment yet high enough to give the skydiver a safe margin to deploy a parachute and remain in focus.

Choosing the right location

They staged the attempt at the Willcox Playa Fly-In, a vast dry lakebed in southeastern Arizona. The miles-wide, flat terrain provided unobstructed airspace and made it easy for the pilot to sight McCarthy's position on the ground and line up the ultralight's approach precisely.

Execution and equipment

Brown jumped from an ultralight as the aircraft crossed the sun from McCarthy's viewpoint. The silhouette had to pass through a tiny field of view only a few arcminutes wide. It took about an hour and six passes for the pilot to refine the line and for conditions to align as the sun climbed.

Instruments McCarthy used included:

• Lunt 60 mm hydrogen-alpha telescope with a 2.5x Powermate and ASI1600 camera
• AR 127 mm doublet refractor modified for hydrogen-alpha with a Daystar Quark and ASI174 camera
• Sky-Watcher Esprit 150 mm modified with a Lunt wedge and a Z CAM E2-S6
• Canon R5 with an 800 mm lens and a white-light aperture filter

Dual-scale workflow and the final image

McCarthy operated in two scales simultaneously: a wider field of view to guide the pilot and track the ultralight's approach, and a tight crop centered on the chromospheric active region for the final exposure. When the pilot was nearly aligned, McCarthy could see the canopy silhouette on his monitors and call the jump countdown: "3, 2, 1, go!"

The successful pass produced the final close-up titled "The Fall of Icarus." McCarthy later assembled a 100-plus-tile mosaic to provide a full-disk context image, pairing the dramatic silhouette with the sun's larger active structures.

"It was an incredible moment to actually capture that and see that happening live on the monitors," McCarthy said.

The photograph is a striking example of how meticulous planning, an understanding of optical limits, and careful piloting can combine to create a single, technically demanding image that merges human daring with the dynamic detail of our star.

See more of Andrew McCarthy's work at: cosmicbackground.io