The Crimson Cauldron

I’ve been fascinated with volcanoes ever since I was a little kid, so of course the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland has got me pretty excited. This picture from APOD is absolutely glorious:

I wonder how close you can get to a volcano like that? Somehow I imagine the photographer hovering in a helicopter close to the midst of the turmoil, but I know we have telephoto lenses to thank for the picture.

The closest I have ever been to an active volcano was when my family visited Kilauea on the Big Island of Hawaii. At night, under the most clear, magnificent skyscape I have ever seen, you can make out red tendrils of flowing lava in the distance. Kilauea has put on more impressive displays in the past. From Mark Twain’s firsthand account:

Occasionally the molten lava flowing under the superincumbent crust broke through - split a dazzling streak, from five hundred to a thousand feet long, like a sudden flash of lightning, and then acre after acre of the cold lava parted into fragments, turned up edgewise like cakes of ice when a great river breaks up, plunged downward and were swallowed in the crimson cauldron.

I feel bad for all the stranded travelers, but very happy for the volcano - and for everyone else who appreciates having such terrible gorgeous spectacles in our universe.