"The photograph with which I obtained second place in the Pano Awards was taken during the violent eruption of the Volcán Calbuco, located in the south of Chile," he told Engadget via email. "The technique was simple: long exposure, tripod and a 80-200mm lens. Approximately 10 minutes to achieve that incredible image that, without a doubt, is my best photograph of an eruption and I think the best taken in the world."
How does this happen? In a regular thunderstorm cloud, lightning is created when rising air makes ice crystals and water droplets bump together, forming static electricity. Once the charges build up enough to surpass the atmosphere's natural insulating tendency, lightning discharges either from one cloud to another or to the ground.
Volcanic lightning works on the same principle, but via different actions. Recently, researchers studying one of the world's most active volcanoes, Japan's Mount Sakurajima (above), learned more about how it forms. Using high-speed cameras, they discovered that charge created by churning magma builds around the rim, electrifying the ash just above it.
That creates an electrostatic potential in the lower portion of the ash that eventually causes lightning to discharge into the cloud or air, often in the opposite direction of regular lightning. As such, lightning formation is usually limited to the bottom part of the ash plume, and depends strongly on how the plume develops.
Created
