Image titled “Run to Carina” captured by Vikas Chander.
Vikas Chander – Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024
Have you ever looked up at the night sky and felt a sense of wonder? The universe is a vast and beautiful place filled with celestial objects that spark our imagination.
Now, skilled photographers have translated the universe’s beauty into stunning images, from star-studded skies to solar spectacles.
Recently, the Royal Observatory Greenwich released the shortlisted images for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024 competition.
Over 3,500 entries from 58 countries poured in for the prestigious Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, now in its 16th year. The suspense builds as the winning shots will be revealed on September 12, with one photographer taking home the coveted £10,000 grand (more than $12,000) prize.
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A Night with the Valkyries
Photographer Jose Miguel Picon Chimelis captured this breathtaking display of the aurora borealis dancing across the Icelandic sky. The image offers a panoramic view of the Eystrahorn Mountain in east Iceland. Jose described the moment in the caption: “That night, I think, was one of the most amazing that I have experienced in my nighttime photography outings. There was a prediction of a KP7 storm [a strong geomagnetic storm that can cause aurorae and upset electrical power systems] and I was excited as to what I might see. What I couldn’t have imagined was seeing these colours in the sky; it was a spectacle that was difficult to describe.” -
A Whale Sailing the Sun
Up next is a close-up of our host star. Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau captured the dynamics of our majestic sun in this image. The plasma formation seen in the image tricks our brains into seeing familiar shapes; hence, the image has been given this title. “When using my telescope on this day, surprise and wonder took hold of me as I beheld an extraordinary filament, its shape reminiscent of an immense plasma whale traversing the solar surface, above the disc. It was truly astonishing to witness the singularity of this imposing figure,” Eduardo revealed. Interestingly, this image is a combination of two separate videos — reach recording the sun in two parts: the main disc and the fiery prominences. -
Abandoned House
But space photography is not just about distant objects. Stefan Liebermann showcases the Milky Way galaxy rising majestically above a deserted house in Namibia. Stefan explained the shot: “In the middle of the Namib Desert you can find an abandoned house and, right above it, the Milky Way rises. I put some lights in the house, set up my star tracker, and seized the opportunity. Through a veil of clouds, halos around the stars created a dream-like effect. The sky was captured with a star tracker to lower the ISO.” -
Arctic Dragon
Carina Letelier Baeza took this spectacular shot of aurora over Arctic Henge in Raufarhöfn, Iceland.”This aurora panorama, which looks like a big dragon over the rock pyramids, was the result of a geomagnetic storm (level G2) generated by a coronal mass ejection earlier that day. The result was intense red-greenish aurorae throughout the whole night,” Carina described. -
Serpentine
Paul Haworth documented this scene on a clear night at Snettisham Beach in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, UK . “Serpentine” is a fitting title for this image, reflecting the snake-like curve of the channel through the mudflat and the scaly surface appearance. “My foreground subject for the evening was the large, dilapidated jetty, which was built in the Second World War to allow gravel extracted from the nearby pits, destined to help build the concrete runways needed to support the American bombers stationed in the UK, to be moved by boat,” Paul noted. -
Total Solar Eclipse
There’s nothing quite like a total solar eclipse – a jaw-dropping display of nature’s power and wonder. In April 2023, Australia witnessed 62 seconds of totality during a total solar eclipse. Gwenaël Blanck snapped this beautiful photo near Exmouth, Western Australia. “With this collage, I wanted to show the beauty of the corona (which looks like a flower this close to the solar maximum), but also the pink chromosphere, the prominences and Baily’s beads [chinks of sunlight that shine through due to the Moon’s rugged landscape],” Gwenaël said. -
Saturn with Six Moons
Andy Casely captured this jaw-dropping shot of our solar system’s ringed beauty. The photo was taken in Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. “Saturn’s decreasing ring tilt is helping the big orange moon Titan get closer to Saturn from our viewpoint than it has in over a decade,” Andy explained. “The usually distant Titan joined the moon family portrait this September. At the centre of the image Tethys is just about to disappear behind Saturn, while Rhea, Enceladus and Mimas are on the left and Dione is to the lower right. The planet’s shadow on the rings is prominent, as are the Cassini and Encke divisions.” -
International Space Station Daytime Moon Transit
Kelvin Hennessy took the shot of the ISS crossing the Moon from the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. The photographer explained: “I used Ed Morana’s ISS Transit Prediction app to find a suitable transit path and confirmed this with Stellarium. Finding a suitable shooting location in a city was the most difficult part of the shoot. I used Google Earth and Google Street view to look for a suitable candidate with clear skies and parking along the very narrow transit corridor.” -
M81, a Grand Design Spiral Galaxy
Holden Aimar captured this image of M81, a galaxy roughly 11.75 million light-years away from Earth. “It is one of the brighter galaxies in the night sky. Very faintly in the image’s background, some Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN) can be seen. IFN is dust outside the Milky Way’s galactic plane that is illuminated only by the stars in the Milky Way,” Holden mentioned in the release.
