PHOTOGRAPHY Star Gazing

STAR GAZING

Astronomy Photographer of the Year showcases the world’s best space photography, from spectacular skyscapes to mind-blowing images of distant planets and galaxies

words dolores o’donoghue

Aphotograph of the annular solar eclipse, taken in Tibet by Chinese photographer Shuchang Dong, has been awarded the top prize at the prestigious Royal Observatory Greenwich Astronomy Photographer of the Year awards (see page 32).

The beauty, simplicity and technical excellence of Dong’s image spellbound the judges. The photograph depicts the annular solar eclipse that occurred on 21 June 2020 in a powerful and atmospheric composition.

Competition judge Dr Emily Drabek-Maunder, who is an astronomer, astrophysicist and the Senior Manager of Public Astronomy at the Royal Observatory Greenwich said: ‘Solar eclipses have been capturing the interest of humans for thousands of years across the world. This image demonstrates not only the beauty and simplicity of an eclipse, but also the science behind this astronomical event. Our sun can still be seen as a ring circling the Moon as it passes in front of the Sun, and mountains on the lunar surface can be seen hiding some of this light on the lower right-hand portion of the image. This is a stunning achievement!’

Astronomy Photographer of the Year, which celebrates the artistry of astrophotography, is run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich in association with

Category: Aurorae – Highly Commended Goðafoss Flow ©Larryn Rae (New Zealand) Goðafoss, Northeastern Region, Iceland, 6 February 2020 This image shows the winter aurora at one of the most recognisable waterfalls in Iceland – the waterfall of the gods, the mighty Goðafoss. The temperature was around -10°C and the calm and clear weather with a full moon lit the area incredibly, which made exposing the image much easier. The beautiful hues of the Moon, mixed with the aurora, the image of a semi-frozen waterfall and the beams of light across the sky made this night unforgettable for the photographer.

BBC’s Sky at Night Magazine. The Royal Observatory is part of the Royal Museums Greenwich and is the home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian and is one of the most important historic scientific sites in the world. Since its founding in 1675, Greenwich has been at the centre of the measurement of time and space, and visitors today can still stand on the historic Prime Meridian line.

Now in its thirteenth year, the competition received over 4,500 entries from seventy-five countries. The best of these exceptional photographs – winners, runners-up, highly commended and shortlisted – are showcased in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 13 exhibition at the National Maritime Museum which is also part of the Royal Museums Greenwich.

Winners, shortlisted entries and a selection of previous winners are published in the competition’s official book, available at Royal Museums Greenwich shops and website.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year is sponsored by global insurers, Liberty Specialty Markets. Visit the exhibition until 7 August 2022. Following are some of the spectacular winning images:

Category: Our Sun – Winner and Overall Winner The Golden Ring ©Shuchang Dong (China) Ali, Tibet, China, 21 June 2020 On 21 June 2020, there was an annular solar eclipse and the photographer made sure not to miss it. He decided to go to Ali in Tibet to shoot it because it has year-round sunny weather. However, during the annular eclipse, there were dark clouds all over the sky. The anticipation was high but within a minute of the annular eclipse, the sunshine pierced through the clouds and the photographer was lucky to capture that moment. Afterwards, the Sun disappeared again.

Category: People and Space – Winner Lockdown © Deepal Ratnayaka (UK) Windsor, Berkshire, UK, 20–21 January 2021 With the UK being in full lockdown and travel restricted for many months due to the pandemic, astrophotography became the photographer’s focus. This photo sums up the year 2020 – cramped but hopeful. The photographer’s six-year-old daughter, who is always very interested in the photoshoots, was around during the set-up. Sitting by the door, she was showing the stars appearing one by one in the sky to her soft toy Max, and this gave the photographer the perfect opportunity to get her in the frame, which complimented the message behind the photo.

Category: Young Competition – Winner Family Photo of the Solar System © 至璞 王 Zhipu Wang (China), aged 15 Yongtai, Fujian, China, 14 August 2020–21 January 2021 This is an image of the Sun, the Moon and the planets of the Solar System (except Earth) taken during the Year of the Rat in China. In this special year, the photographer felt very lucky to produce the images of these celestial bodies, and for a student who has only practised astrophotography for one year, it was a great accomplishment.

Category: Stars and Nebulae – Winner California Dreamin’ NGC 1499 © Terry Hancock (UK) Whitewater, Colorado, USA, 16–31 January, 6 and 28 February, 2 March 2021 The California Nebula, otherwise known as NGC 1499, was captured over seven nights in 2021 using broadband and narrowband filters, with a total integration time of 16.1 hours. This emission nebula is around 100 light-years long and 1,000 light-years away from Earth. It is named California Nebula because it appears to resemble the outline of the US State of California. The raw data was pre-processed and the stars were removed using a tool called Starnet, then later replaced during post-processing with the more naturally coloured stars from the RGB (red, green, blue) data. While the colours in this image are not the true colours, the narrowband filters reveal much more of the hidden gasses not visible in a broadband image.

Category: The Manju Mehrotra Family Trust Prize for Best Newcomer – Winner Falcon 9 Soars Past the Moon ©Paul Eckhardt (USA) Titusville, Florida, USA, 4 February 2021 Four hours before the Falcon 9 launch, the photographer downloaded the Photo Pills app, subscribed to flightclub.io and started intensive research to understand both applications and pinpoint a location where the flight arc would overlap the Moon. When the photographer arrived at the launch location, he was blocked by a gate and ended up on a different dark road with trees blocking the launch pad. After making a quick calculation, he parked and ran a hundred feet in the dark and then the sky lit up as Falcon 9 soared straight up, tilted over, and aimed right at the Moon.

Category: Our Sun – Highly Commended Curtain of Hydrogen ©Alan Friedman (USA) Buffalo, New York, USA, 17 June 2020 This beautiful large prominence graced the surface of the Sun over several days and was recorded in good seeing conditions. ‘Good seeing conditions’ here refers to the steadiness of the Earth’s atmosphere rather than to cloudless skies. Only when the atmospheric turbulence is low can fine details and structures be seen with clarity.

Category: The Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation – Winner (Joint) Celestial Fracture © Leonardo Di Maggio (UK) The Cassini missions brought back some astounding imagery of our solar system. The photographer used a selection of the CICLOPS team’s photographs of Saturn to create this piece. The patterns formed by Saturn, its rings and its moons are truly magnificent. The photographs have echoes of architecture, nature, art and design, and are just as artistically inspirational as they are crucial for scientific study. The photographer edited several spectacular images before assembling the fragments into a grid pattern, ordering them in this particular way to retain the remnants of familiar imagery, but in a fractured and disrupted way with undertones of science fiction symbolism.

Category: The Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation – Winner (Joint) Another Cloudy Day on Jupiter © Sergio Díaz Ruiz (Spain) High clouds on Jupiter create intricate and beautiful shapes that swirl all over the planet. In order to get a colour image when there are only three colour channels (red, green, blue), some sort of filter-to-channel mapping must be done. PixInsight was used for the rest of the processing: custom white balance, deconvolution and wavelet transformation for detail enhancement, contrast and saturation curves. The areas corresponding to the poles were too bright and distracting so they were darkened by colour masking.

Category: Skyscapes - Winner Luna Dunes © Jeffrey Lovelace (USA) Death Valley National Park, California, USA, 25 February 2020 The smouldering crescent Moon floats in an ocean blue atmosphere above quiet, glowing dunes of sand, and the red of the sunset has faded into blue twilight. The photographer hiked deep into the dunes and eventually found the foreground he had imagined for this shot. Once everything was assembled, he looked up and there hung a shining sliver of a crescent moon outlining its dark but visible face. This HDR/perspective blend integrates four images, all shot that evening with the same 70–200-mm lens, and from the same tripod location. The images were combined in Photoshop and together they effectively replicate the sublime scene the photographer witnessed that evening.

Category: Aurorae – Winner Polar Lights Dance © Dmitrii Rybalka (Russia) Approach to the Kara Strait, Russia, 30 November 2020 As Third Officer, the photographer was keeping watch that night on the bridge of the ship when he noticed a tiny white band in the sky approaching like a snake. He had a feeling that there was something in the air, that something great would happen, and instantly knew that this was what he had been waiting for. He got his camera, went to the bridge wing, took position and waited. A few minutes later, the sky was full of bright green lights dancing in darkness and shining over everything below. The photographer felt that it was his mission to share this beauty with the world.

Category: Our Moon – Runner-up Lunar Halo © Göran Strand (Sweden) Östersund, Jämtland County, Sweden, 25 January 2021 This is a bright 22° lunar halo. When the photographer took this photo it was -16°C and the air was filled with small ice crystals that made this halo possible. This regular 22° halo is more commonly seen around the Sun. The moonlight needs to be quite strong to make the halo visible, so it’s more common around the days of a full moon. That night, the Moon was 90% lit so almost full. To the left can be seen the city lights of Östersund, Sweden. At five o’clock in the halo, it can be seen crossing the constellation of Orion. In the foreground, there are rabbit tracks.

Category: Galaxies – Winner The Milky Ring © Zhong Wu (China) Sichuan and Qinghai, China; Lake Pukaki, New Zealand, January–February 2020 and August 2020–January 2021 An expanse of cosmic dust, stars and nebulae along the plane of the Milky Way galaxy form a magnificent ring in this image. The panorama covers the entire galaxy visible from planet Earth. It is an ambitious 360-degree mosaic that took the photographer two years to complete. Northern hemisphere sites in China and southern hemisphere sites in New Zealand were used to collect the image data. Like a glowing jewel set in the Milky Way ring, the bulge of the galactic centre is at the very top. The bright planet Jupiter is the beacon just above the central bulge and to the left of the red giant star Antares. Along the plane and almost 180° from the galactic centre at the bottom of the ring is the area around Orion. The ring of the Milky Way encompasses two notable galaxies in the southern skies, the large and small Magellanic Clouds.

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