This stunning, blood-red image of the Sun is one of the ‘clearest’ images ever taken of it from the earth.

Andrew, who posted his photos on his Instagram page, created the striking image by taking almost 100,000 individual photos of the Sun – at a rate of about 100 photos per second.

He said: “I was very pleased with the final result.

“I wasn’t sure if the image would turn out so well, as stitching together a large photo of the sun comes with unique challenges that I’ve never dealt with before.”

“But I will definitely be producing more of these.”

He added: “To capture the sun in more detail than I’ve ever attempted, I assembled a new solar telescope that gave me 4000mm of focal length, about 10x the magnification of my previous telescope.

“I used a technique called ‘lucky imaging’, so the best frames from a particular session are stacked together to help reduce the effects of the atmosphere.

“These photos were captured just before noon, when the sun was high in the sky but while the atmosphere was still relatively calm.

“By capturing close up details of the surface with this rig, timed when the atmosphere was very still, I was able to produce sharp details on its surface.

“These objects around the edge of the Sun are known as a ‘prominence’ – a mass of plasma suspended in the solar atmosphere by the sun’s powerful magnetic field.

“These happen quite frequently, and last a long time.”