Royal Observatory | National Maritime Museums | United Kingdom
Earth and Space
- Photos in this category had to include landscape, people and other ‘earthly’ things alongside an astronomical subject.
- Blazing Bristlecone
by Tom Lowe (USA)
The gnarled branches of an ancient tree align with a view of our Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is a flat, disc-like structure of stars, gas and dust measuring more than 100,000 light years across. Our Sun lies within the disc, about two-thirds of the way out from the centre, so we see the Milky Way as a bright band encircling the sky. This view is looking towards the centre of our galaxy, 26,000 light years away, where dark clouds of dust blot out the light of more distant stars. What appears to be an artificial satellite orbiting the Earth makes a faint streak of light across the centre of the image.
Category and Overall Competition Winner
- Whisper of the Wind
by Dave Brosha (Canada)
The aurorae, or Northern and Southern Lights, are caused
by the interaction between the Earth’s atmosphere and a stream of particles from the Sun known as the solar wind. The Earth’s magnetic field funnels these particles down over the planet’s poles giving rise to glowing curtains of coloured light. These are best seen in the night sky near to the North and South Poles.
Runner-up
- Surrounded by Space
by Fredrik Broms (Sweden)
The Northern Lights flicker above the bare branches of this winter forest in Kvaløya, Norway. Framed by the treetops, bright stars form the familiar 'W'-shape of the constellation Cassiopeia.
Highly Commended
- Primal Wonder
by Larry Andreasen (USA)
What appears to be smoke rising from this controlled fire in a North American forest is in fact our galaxy, the Milky Way, a vast disc of stars, gas and dust. Looking out from this disc, we see a few thousand stars which are relatively close. Looking along the disc, at the ‘smoke’ in this photograph, we see hundreds of billions of stars and clouds of dust and gas which are spread throughout the Galaxy.
Highly Commended
- Solstice Full Moon over Sounion
by Anthony Ayiomamitis (Greece)
At the Summer Solstice, the full moon rises behind the columns of the ruined temple of Poseidon on Cape Sounion, south of Athens. The Moon often appears orange or yellow when close to the horizon, as its light is filtered through the thick layers of the Earth’s atmosphere. At these low angles, the Moon can look much larger than usual because our eyes compare it with familiar objects on the skyline.
Highly Commended
- This category was for photographs of our Sun and its family of planets, moons, asteroids and comets.
- Siberian Totality
by Anthony Ayiomamitis (Greece)
During a total solar eclipse, the Moon passes directly in front of the Sun. For a few minutes, with the dazzling light of the solar disc blocked from view, we gain a rare glimpse of the corona, the Sun’s outer atmosphere. Powerful magnetic fields warp and shape the super-heated gas of the corona into glowing loops and streamers.
Category Winner
- Jupiter
by Nick Smith (UK)
Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System. A giant ball of gas with no solid surface, its atmosphere is streaked with colourful bands of cloud. This image was taken just after a large asteroid plunged into Jupiter’s atmosphere, exploding beneath the clouds. A dark patch near the top of the planet’s disc marks the impact.
Runner-up
- The Green Visitor
by Richard Higby (Australia)
Comets are visitors from the frozen edges of the Solar System. A comet’s nucleus is a chunk of ice and rock just a few kilometres across. As it passes close to the Sun, ice on the surface evaporates. This streams off into space to produce the comet’s spectacular tail of dust and gas, millions of kilometres long.
Highly Commended
- The Crescent Venus
by Lorenzo Comolli (Italy)
As it moves around the Sun, our neighbouring planet, Venus, appears to go through a series of phases from crescent to full, just like the Moon. These phases can only be seen through a telescope or binoculars. They were first observed by the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei exactly 400 years ago. His observations proved that Venus must orbit the Sun, showing that not everything in the Universe goes around the Earth.
Highly Commended
- Sinus Iridum
by Nick Smith (UK)
Sinus Iridum, or the ‘Bay of Rainbows’ lies on the edge of the Moon’s ‘Sea of Rains’ (Mare Imbrium). The smooth floor of the bay is filled with dark lava, which solidified billions of years ago and is surrounded by rugged mountains. These highlands are older than the lava plains and are therefore more heavily scarred by craters – the relics of ancient meteorite impacts.
Highly Commended
- This category was for photos of anything beyond the Solar System, including stars, nebulae and galaxies.
- Orion Deep Wide Field
by Rogelio Bernal Andreo (USA)
The three bright stars of Orion's Belt, on the left of this image, are a familiar sight in the winter sky. Here, however, a long exposure reveals an epic vista of dust and gas clouds which are too faint to be seen by the naked eye. This is an immense region of space hundreds of light years across. It contains several well-known astronomical sights, including the Horsehead Nebula (bottom centre) and the Orion Nebula (top right).
Category Winner
- The Veil Nebula in Cygnus
by Martin Pugh (UK/Australia)
The Veil Nebula is the aftermath of a supernova explosion, the violent death of a star many times more massive than the Sun. Thousands of years later, the debris from the blast is still spreading out through space, in the form of this glowing cloud of gas. Explosions like this are the source of many of the chemical elements from which planets, and even life, have formed.
Runner-up
- The Sword and the Rose (Orion’s sword and M42)
by Marcus Davies (Australia)
This cloud of dark dust and glowing gas in the Sword of Orion is the M42 nebula, a stellar nursery where new stars are being born. M42 is visible to the naked eye but a telescope reveals the full beauty of this giant star factory. The fierce radiation from newly-formed stars peels back the layers of gas, like a giant flower unfurling its petals.
Highly Commended
- The Trifid Nebula (M20)
by Eddie Trimarchi (Australia)
This glowing cloud of gas takes its name from the dark lanes of dust which appear to divide it into three. The pink glow comes from hydrogen molecules which have been energized by the stars at the centre of the nebula. To the left of the image a neighbouring cloud of dust reflects the blue light of the central stars.
Highly Commended
- The Andromeda Galaxy (M31)
by Edward Henry (USA)
Andromeda is one of the closest galaxies to our own Milky Way. Even so, the light from Andromeda takes two-and-a-half million years to reach us, so we see this galaxy as it appeared in the distant past. Like the Milky Way, Andromeda contains hundreds of billions of stars as well as dust and gas swirling in its spiral arms. Seen from Andromeda, our own galaxy would probably look very similar to this.
Highly Commended
- This is a special competition category for young astronomy photographers under the age of 16.
- A Perfect Circle
by Dhruv Arvind Paranjpye (India), aged 14
An annular eclipse occurs when the Moon is too far from the Earth to completely cover the Sun’s disc, as it would during a total solar eclipse. Seen here through a layer of cloud, a bright ring appears as the uncovered part of the Sun shines around the edges of the Moon.
Category Winner
- Solar Halo
by Laurent V. Joli-Coeur (Canada), aged 13
From time to time, unusual weather conditions produce spectacular lighting effects in the Earth’s atmosphere. In this photo, sunlight is reflecting from tiny ice crystals in very high clouds, giving rise to a colourful solar halo. Two vapour trails from passing aircraft cast shadows on the higher clouds above due to the low angle of the Sun.
Runner-up
- Half-Moon Terminator
by Jathin Premjith (India), aged 14
The lunar landscape is littered with craters formed by the impact of asteroids and comets over billions of years. They are easiest to see close to the terminator, the boundary between the sunlit and dark sides of the Moon. Here, the terminator marks lunar sunrise and elongated shadows make the craters stand out in sharp relief.
Highly Commended
- A Detailed Full Moon
by Daniel Mortimer (UK), aged 15
The dark areas on the Moon’s surface are vast plains of solidified lava called lunar ‘seas’ or maria. The ‘rays’ toward the lower portion of this image are the spray of debris from an ancient crater, formed billions of years ago by the impact of a large asteroid or comet.
Highly Commended
- The Pelican Nebula Up-Close
by Elias Jordan (USA), aged 15
The Pelican Nebula is part of a huge cloud of gas and dust in which new stars are forming. Hydrogen gas heated by young stars glows pink, while dense clouds of dust stand out dark against the lighter background. A very bright star can be seen towards the bottom of the image.
Highly Commended
- This is a new category for this year, for photos that include people in a creative and original way.
- Photon Worshippers
by Steven Christenson (USA)
For a few days each year, the setting Sun shines directly through the archway of a large rock formation at Pfeiffer Beach in Big Sur, California. This event has become very popular with photographers. Alignments of the Sun with natural and man-made structures have been significant to people for thousands of years.
- This category is for photos by people who have taken up the hobby in the last year and have not entered the competition before. Special consideration is given to those using simple and inexpensive start-out kit.
- The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)
by Ken Mackintosh (UK)
Galaxies are vast collections of hundreds of billions of stars, gas and dust bound together by gravity. M51, or the Whirlpool, is a classic example of a spiral galaxy with swirling patterns of newly formed stars lacing gracefully through its disc. A smaller, rounder galaxy is seen towards the top of this image, slowly colliding with its larger neighbour.