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The Royal Observatory Greenwich announced the winners of the 15th Astronomy Photographer of the Year award at an awards ceremony held on September 14.
This was the 15th year that the Royal Observatory Greenwich has run the competition, which has garnered more than 4,000 entries from 64 different countries for 2023. A shortlist of winning entries was released in July, and many of those stunning images have resurfaced.
This year’s winning photo
Related: This stunning James Webb Space Telescope image shows a young star exploding supersonic jets
As the world’s largest astrophotography competition, the Royal Greenwich Observatory divides the winners into 11 categories, and from these chooses the overall winner.
The first place this year came in the galaxies category, and was won by Marcel Drexler, from Germany, and French photographers Xavier Strottner and Yann Sainty, for their photo of the Andromeda Galaxy.
Galaxies and overall winner
This winning image of the Andromeda Galaxy from the team of amateur astronomers led by Drechsler, Struttner, and Saint is titled Andromeda, unexpectedThe large blue arc of plasma that appears next to our nearest galaxy.
The plasma streak was, in fact, a discovery in itself, according to a statement from the Royal Greenwich Observatory, and is now being studied by scientists as perhaps the largest phenomenon of its kind in our little corner of the universe.
The runner-up and highly acclaimed entries award in the Galaxy category went to Weitang Liang, from China, and Paul Montague, from Australia, for their respective images. Eye galaxies And the neighbors.
Northern lights
Monica Devitt, from Canada, won this year’s Aurora Borealis Photo Award for her photo, Pencil brush. The uniqueness of this aurora borealis, according to the competition judges, sets it apart from the usual “terrestrial perspective,” “evoking the arts of brush and line painting.”
Second place in the Aurora Championship and top honors were awarded to Andreas Eitel, from Germany, and Chester Hall Fernandes, from New Zealand, for their photographs. Spotlight And Fire on the horizonrespectively.
Our moon
Ethan Chappell captured this image of Mars and the Moon during the December 8 occultation in 2022, from Cibolo, Texas. Mars group It shows the setting of the Red Planet behind the Moon’s southern hemisphere, shining during the rare alignment.
Tom Williams, from the United Kingdom, and Miguel Claro, from Portugal, won second place and high marks for their submitted work. Sunset on the Terminator And The last full moon of the year shows the colorful Corona during a close encounter with Marsrespectively.
Our sun
Sun question Taken by Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau for winner of the Our Sun category. The image features a large, question mark-shaped solar filament rising from the surface of the Sun, showing our star in stunning detail.
Peter Ward took second place and highly acclaimed awards for his image, Dark starAnd Muhammad Arjun L Great solar flare.
People and space
This photo was taken by Vikas Chander on the Skeleton Coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Located in one of Namibia’s northernmost coastal regions, the Skeleton Coast has developed a reputation for its treacherous waters.
ZillaThe name of this picture is also the name of the boat pictured. The ship ran aground in 2008, and appears in the foreground of 30 minutes of rolling fog, with stars visible in the gray night sky above.
Andrew McCarthy received second place and a highly acclaimed entry in People & Space magazine, for his photo of the International Space Station (ISS) crossing the Moon. Visit to TaikoAnd to Katie McGuinness for her out-of-this-world star trail photography, Close Encounters of the Haslingden Type.
Planets, comets and asteroids
Hanging in the sunbeam This is a false-color image of Venus, from photographer Tom Williams, that won the Planets, Comets and Asteroids category. Using infrared light, Williams was able to highlight details of Venus’ upper atmosphere, revealing much more than can be seen with the naked eye.
Second place and highly acclaimed images of Jupiter, Uranus and its moons came from photographers Marco Lorenzi and Martin Lewis, respectively.
Related: The study says that the “lightning” on Venus is actually meteorites burning up in the planet’s atmosphere
Skyscapes
The extremely rare phenomena captured in this image from Angel An are called sprites. Sprites occur like lightning high in the Earth’s atmosphere, and are rarely seen from Earth. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station have been known to take photos of goblins from time to time. This photo was taken, Great cosmic fireworksfrom the top of the Himalayan mountain range.
Louis Leroux-Ger and Peter Hoszang took second place, receiving high praise for their respective images of star trails over the Canadian Vimy National Monument, in France, and luminous nighttime clouds over Hungary.
Stars and nebulae
The bright star inside the red gas nebula was photographed by Marcel Drexler and a team of amateur astronomers. In fact, the bright light at the center of the gas is actually a pair of binary stars, surrounded by a previously undiscovered nebula.
Second place and prestigious awards were awarded to Anthony Quintel and James Baguley, for their stunning images of the nebula.
Sir Patrick Moore Award for Best Newcomer
The light blinded him This is the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s winning photo for Best Newcomer, photographed by Aaron Wilhelm. The vibrant image shows the Sh2-132 complex near the constellations Cepheus and Lacerta, and was created using 70 hours of data to stitch together the brilliant, colorful gas layers.
Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year
Runwei Xu and Binyu Want won the Young Astronomy Photographers of the Year award Running Chicken Nebula, a hypnotic mix of swirling cosmic colors from the Cygnus Nebula, IC2944. The young photographers captured this image using a 1,900 mm Newtonian telescope, with over 5.5 hours of exposure.
Annie Mander Award for Image Creativity
Finally, John White won in the innovation category with his image. Black Echo. Using the sound of the supermassive black hole at the center of the Perseus Galaxy, captured by NASA’s Chandra Sonication Project, White imaged the vibrations of water in a petri dish as it oscillated above the sound waves of the amplifier.
All the winning photographs, the highly acclaimed winning photographs, and more, are currently part of an exhibition at the National Maritime Museum, in Greenwich, London.
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