An airplane appears to be moments away from being gobbled up by the sun in this amazing view of a solar eclipse.
This photo, captured by photographer Phillip Calais, shows a single moment during the solar eclipse of May 10. Here, Earth's moon is blocking the lower portion of the sun not long after sunrise Western Australia, where Calais was observing from.
While the partial solar eclipse pictured here was taken from Western Australia, stargazers from other parts of the world witnessed an annular solar eclipse, also known as a 'ring of fire' solar eclipse. This occurs when the moon's disk appears smaller than the disk of the sun, resulting in a ring of sunlight visible surrounding the moon, resulting in a ring of fire, or annular, solar eclipse. [See more amazing solar eclipse photos from May 2013]
"Getting the aircraft in was purely a chance shot, nothing more," Calais wrote SPACE.com in an email.
Calais captured this image in early from Monument Hill in Fremantle. He took this photo using a Canon 40D with Canon 400 mm f5.6 lens and a 2x teleconverter. The photo was taken at 7:05 a.m. and the sun was only about 1.4 degrees above the horizon.
Warning: Never look directly at the sun through binoculars, telescopes or with your unaided eye. Severe eye damage, and even blindness, can result. Astronomers use special filters to safely observe the sun and protective glasses are required for solar eclipse viewing.
Editor's note: If you have an amazing night sky photo you'd like to share for a possible story or image gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.
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