Radiant Sun Celestial Wonder — Print & Oil Painting

The surface is the whole subject. Every part of it is covered in short curved fibres, thousands of them, running in every direction like fur or like iron filings around a magnet, and the eye can find no smooth patch anywhere on the disc.

The framing is severe and deliberately unbalanced. The star fills the left three quarters of a tall upright frame and its edge curves down the right side, cutting the image into one bright field and one narrow band of near black. The colour range is tiny: amber, ochre, tangerine, brown, and no other hue anywhere.

One region breaks the pattern near the centre. A dark tangled knot of spots sits there with a single brilliant white point beside it, and for some distance around, the fibres have been pulled into curves that circle the knot the way dust arranges itself around a pole.

Low on the curved edge a jagged arc of dimmer orange stands clear into the dark, the only thing in the picture that leaves the surface at all. Part of our Galaxies & Astronauts collection. For the same star framed from the opposite side, see Vibrant Solar Eruption.