If you've ever seen a photo of the Sun that stopped you in your tracks, there's a very good chance Andrew McCarthy took it. His image of our star is the first thing you see when you open the Shadowmap story, and it's the artwork behind Sunlight Matters itself. So this one is personal.

Andrew is the Arizona-based astrophotographer behind some of the most iconic space images of recent years, including Icarus, his jaw-dropping shot of a skydiver falling in front of the sun, named one of the photos of the year. In this episode, he tells the full story of how it was pulled off: an ultralight plane, a dry lake bed in the Arizona desert, months of maths, and one last-chance jump.

We also get into:

• How a cheap Dobsonian telescope and a blurry photo of the Orion Nebula changed his life
• Why space isn't grey, and the misconceptions that almost everyone (including Andrew) starts with
• What you can actually see with a pair of binoculars, from the Andromeda galaxy to the Large Magellanic Cloud
• How he photographs the sun in hydrogen alpha to reveal the chromosphere, convection cells the size of Texas, and plasma jets thousands of miles long
• The moon photo that went viral, ended up on the side of NASA's Artemis I rocket, and led to an extraordinary collaboration with Artemis II commander Reid Wiseman, which showed the hidden colours of the moon, revealed for the first time from photos taken in lunar orbit, and the print release that raised $40,000 for cancer research at MD Anderson
• Why watching a Starship launch hits you like a ton of bricks (literally), and his advice for anyone who wants to see a rocket launch for themselves
• His plans for the 2026 total solar eclipse over Iceland and Spain, which he intends to shoot from a boat
• And a few tips for my own 4 am sunrise photography habit

Andrew's mission is simple: to show you the universe as if you had superhuman vision, and to inspire the next generation of astronauts, engineers and stargazers. Job done, frankly.

Follow Andrew

• Instagram: @cosmic_background
• Website: cosmicbackground.io
• X: @AJamesMcCarthy

Sunlight Matters is a podcast exploring the role of the Sun in human health, architecture, cities, and everyday life.

Through conversations with scientists, architects, and technologists, the series examines how natural light shapes our bodies, our buildings, and the way we live indoors.

Hosted by Dave Wallace, Sunlight Matters asks a simple but overlooked question: what happens when we disconnect from the Sun?

Because sunlight isn’t optional. It matters.

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