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Peter Lowenstein
Mutare, Zimbabwe
04/01/2023
06:07 pm

Equipment Details:

Hand-held Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS40 in sunset mode.

Post-processing Details:

Merging of two photographs taken a minute apart to produce panoramic view.

Image Details:

Magenta Volcanic Sunset Crepuscular Ray.
On Saturday 1st April an unexceptional sunset was followed half-an-hour later by a spectacular volcanic sunset in which a prominent magenta crepuscular ray developed and faded above a receding sunset twilight arch in under eight minutes. This was one of a number of recent spectacular volcanic sunsets still being caused by lingering stratospheric aerosols fourteen and a half months after the massive eruption of the Hunga-Tonga volcano in January 2022. It is not known why volcanic sunset displays continue to be so persistent and regularly recorded over Mutare (and in Queensland Australia by other Spaceweather.com Realtime Image Gallery contributors Noeleen Lowndes and Tara Johnson) but may have something to do with our locations being at similar latitudes to the volcanic eruption. In a previous EarthSky Community Photos post on 7th February at https://earthsky.org/earthsky-community-photos/entry/55492/ , I presented a montage of 308 thumbnail images of volcanic sunsets observed from Mutare between 21 January 2022 and 31 January 2023 and full frame views of these in a slideshow at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXrrMkXVzFA . As of 1st April 2023 the total number of volcanic sunsets observed since 21 January 2022 is 357. This is supporting evidence that the Hunga-Tonga eruption has had one of the most noticeable effects on the stratosphere since the great eruptions of Tambora in 1815, Krakatoa in 1883 and Mount Pinatubo in 1991.