By Eddie Wrenn

PUBLISHED: 12:28 EST, 22 June 2012 | UPDATED: 13:27 EST, 22 June 2012

It is difficult to think of the sun as anything more than how we view it from Earth - a great, bright ball, uniform in appearance as it placidly heats our planet.

But seen in close-up, the view is startling - a raging sea of fire, as the hydrogen fuel of the sun burns away in a five-billion-year explosion.

The artistic, and out-of-this-world photographs were taken by sun enthusiast and solar photographer Alan Freidman, from the Mount Wilson Observatory near Los Angeles, California.

The sun the day before: Alan set up his solar equipment at Mount Wilson the day before the Transit of Venus and ran a test to make sure that everything had survived the trip and was working well

The detail captured by Alan is stunning: Far from being the placid, uniform ball we see each day, the sun is a raging and turbulent ball of flames

Alan, described as a 'master of solar photography' by Discovery News, took this first image a day before the transit of Venus earlier this month.

He was preparing his equipment in advance of the transit, and his practice runs led to these stunning images.

What we see here are the mingling of the upper layers of the sun - known as the photosphere and chromosphere.

Read more here:

The swirling maelstrom of the sun, pictured in outstanding detail during the Transit of Venus by one dedicated space ...