Spectacular solar corona in Antarctica seen by Houlding Spectre expedition

As mentioned in mid-December, Leo Houlding, Jean Burgun and Mark Sedon are currently in Antarctica where they successfully climbed Mt Spectre in the Gothic Mountains before starting their way homewards. The 1700 km return journey has led them past the South Pole and now westwards towards their base on the Union Glacie and is being carried out by fair means, entailing man hauling and kite skiing with 100kg pulks. The trio still have 850km to cover before they complete their Antarctic journey, and they other day they witnessed a spectacular solar corona captured in these photos.

Houlding raved:  "We’ve seen a few halos around the sun, but yesterday either somebody slipped something into our porridge or we were blessed to witness an utterly psychedelic, three dimensional display of polar sun refraction and reflection. For about half an hour we were overawed by what we were seeing. Photos don’t do it justice - it was truly amazing.

“We were fully geared up to leave all day, but the wind direction and strength wouldn’t allow us to ski kite the way we wanted. Twice we were fully packed and ready to go, but within 100m it became clear that it wasn’t going to happen for us, so twice we re-pitched the tent in exactly the same place. Then the sky put on its mind blowing rainbow show and we let go of the frustration and wondered at this place we are visiting."