Galactic worms swallow stars. Plasma whales glide across the surface of the sun. And spooky dragons dance with the aurora borealis. This is not the plot of a fantasy novel, it’s our incredible universe captured in stunning detail.
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich 2024 Astronomy Photographer of the YearThe finalists were selected from more than 3,500 submissions from professional and amateur photographers from 58 countries. The winners will be announced on September 12th, and an exhibition of the top photos will open at the National Maritime Museum in London from September 14th.
Gwenael Blanck traveled to Australia in April 2023 to watch a total solar eclipse that lasted 62 seconds. In this collage, he shows the corona and pink chromosphere, the prominences and Bailey’s beads, and the gaps in sunlight caused by the Moon’s undulating topography. The image is made up of seven overlapping photographs: one overexposed for the background, and six for the chromosphere and prominences. Image: © Gwenaël Blanck (France)
This Geminids meteor shower photo was taken under perfect conditions on the island of La Palma. At the peak of the night, Sanar could easily spot two, three or even more meteors per minute in his field of view. This panoramic photo shows the entire winter Milky Way from La Palma in natural RGB colors with added detail in H Alpha. Image: © Jakob Sahner (Germany)
M81, also known as Bode’s Galaxy, is located in the constellation Ursa Major and is about 11.75 million light-years away. It is one of the brightest galaxies in the night sky. In the background of the image you can see the Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN), a dust nebula outside the plane of the Milky Way that is only illuminated by stars within the Milky Way. Photo: © Holden Aimar (USA), age 14
A view of Mount Eystrahorn in Iceland on the night of a KP7 storm (a powerful geomagnetic storm that can produce the Northern Lights and disrupt power grids). The storm’s intensity caused a dramatic display of colors in the sky. Imagician: © José Miguel Picon Chimelis (Spain) Jose Kimeriz
The photographer was able to capture the movement of the aurora as it transformed into what resembled a dragon’s head on a clear night, and Telser chose to use black and white to accentuate the contrast of the aurora against the dark sky. Image: © Moritz Telser (Italy) Moritz Telser
This photo shows the Sun’s surface in great detail. The photographer sees the shape of a filament to the left of the disk as a giant plasma whale moving across the Sun’s face. Eduardo Schabberger Poupeau took this photo by recording two videos (one for the disk and one for the prominence) of 850 frames each. Image: © Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau (Argentina)
This photo shows an abandoned house in the middle of the Namib Desert with the Milky Way rising above it. The sky was photographed with a star tracker to lower the ISO. The veil of clouds and halos around the stars create a dreamy effect. Image: © Stefan Liebermann (Germany)
This striking aurora, which appears to be in the shape of a dragon, is the result of a geomagnetic storm (level G2) caused by a coronal mass ejection. The photo was taken at Arctic Henge, one of the few clear spots in Iceland that night. Image: © Carina Letelier Baeza (Chile) Kari Leterrier
This photo captured the International Space Station (ISS) passing over the October full Hunter’s Moon, about 12 hours after the partial lunar eclipse. It shows the striking beauty of the full moon, with its mix of rugged highlands, bright crater rays, and dark ocean. IImage: © Tom Glenn (USA)
Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture is a collective name for five mountains, also known as the Aso Gogaku. Nakadake among them has an active crater. Abe wanted to express the Milky Way, which has been watching over the Earth’s activities since ancient times, in this photo. The foreground and the sky were photographed separately without moving the tripod, and then the photo was composed. Image: © Yoshiki Abe (Japan)
In this image, photographers were able to capture the dwarf planet Ceres passing through the outer spiral arms of our galaxy, shining brighter than our galaxy and moving quickly across the night sky. The image was taken over a period of eight hours with multiple long exposures, showcasing the beauty of the Blow Dryer galaxy and the relatively fast speed of the dwarf planet Ceres. Image: © Damon Mitchell Scotting (UK)
CG4 (Comet Glob 4) is a very peculiarly shaped nebula and dust complex in the southern constellation Puppis. The size of the galactic bug’s “head” is about 1.5 light years. This image is the result of a team of astrophotographers who joined forces and borrowed a powerful Newtonian 500 mm telescope from the Chilescope service, processed the raw files and voted for the best image. Image: © Shara
This photo was taken at Snettisham Beach, famous for its extensive mudflats that attract a surprising number of migratory birds. In the foreground is a dilapidated jetty built during World War II to transport boats carrying gravel from the nearby quarry. A shooting star is reflected in the curved channel of the mudflats. Image: © Paul Haworth (UK)
This photo captures a carving in northwestern Namibia. The stone sculpture is part of a group known as the “Lone Men of Kaokoland.” [as the region was formerly known]No one knows who put it there. They first took a long exposure of the stone running man, then moved the tripod so the horizon was clearly visible. Image: © Vikas Chander (India)
During Chinese New Year, the sun and high clouds work together to create this enormous corona that soars high above the Himalayas, resulting in a vast palette of colors over the snow-capped peaks. Image: © Geshuang Chen (China)
The decreasing tilt of Saturn’s rings means that the moon Titan is now closer to Saturn from our perspective than it has been in a decade. In the center of the image, Tethys is disappearing behind Saturn, with Rhea, Enceladus and Mimas to the left and Dione at the lower right. The planet’s shadow reflected in the rings is prominent, as is the Cassini-Encke Division. Image: © Andy Casely (Australia)
The intense brightness of M104’s central nucleus often obscures details inside the surrounding dust halo. In this image, dust appears to spiral into the nucleus and float on a very thin layer before falling toward the massive central black hole. The brighter, more colorful stars in the image are actually in the foreground and are part of the Milky Way galaxy. Image: © Kevin Morefield (USA)
Supernova afterglows in Cygnus are a popular subject among astrophotographers, but the idea here was to take advantage of the high image quality and long exposures of the sky to highlight rarely seen details, such as the outer layers of the supernova remnant. The image is named after Edvard Munch’s famous painting “The Scream,” symbolizing the scream of a star that continues to reverberate through space even after its death. Image: © Yann Sainty (France)
