Magnificent Volcanic Sunset, Mutare Zimbabwe

In the evening on Friday 27th March, 25 minutes after the Sun had disappeared behind Murahwa Mountain to the west, a pale pink anticrepuscular ray unexpectedly appeared converging towards the antisolar point over Cecil Kop Nature Reserve. Almost simultaneously a diffuse ‘fluorescent’ volcanic sunset twilight arch brightened above the sunset horizon from which a display of upwards radiating colorful crepuscular rays began to emerge. Within a few minutes this developed into the most magnificent volcanic sunset display seen from Mutare for many months. Some of the colors were so intense that they almost obscured the bright planet Venus during the last few minutes of its late afternoon descent towards the horizon above the Christmas Pass. The volcanic sunset display, which peaked at about 6.15 pm, receded and faded to disappear a few minutes later. It is amazing that, four-and-a-quarter years after the eruption of the Hunga-Tonga volcano in January 2022, there should still be a sufficient local concentration of aerosols in the stratosphere to produce such a spectacular display!

Tripod-mounted Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ60 in sunset mode.

Compilation of montage of 5 photographs taken between 6.08 and 6.16 pm