The Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition is back! Now in its fourth year, the competition continues to showcase incredible images from amateur astrophotographers all around the world, featuring beautiful objects from within our solar system and far into deep space.
Anyone can enter – whether you’re new to astrophotography or a seasoned amateur, and whatever your age. We’ve had a huge range of images in previous years, from amazing landscape photography that captures the Moon and the Sun to stunning deep space images taken by robotic telescopes. Find out how to enter and what you could win.
Overall winner 2011: Jupiter with lo and Ganymede,
September 2010 by Damian Peach (UK)
To enter the competition you will first need to add your photos to the Astronomy Photographer of the Year group on the photo-sharing website Flickr. Once you have done this, please fill in the relevant online application form on the Astronomy Photographer of the Year website.
The four main competition categories are Earth and Space, Our Solar System, Deep Space and Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year. The judges will also be awarding three additional special prizes: People and Space, Best Newcomer, and Robotic Scope Image of the Year. Find out more about the categories and prizes.
Entries to the competition close at midday (BST) on Friday 29 June 2012.
The winning images will be displayed at the Royal Observatory Greenwich from September in the free Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition. There’s still time to see the winning images from 2011 (closes 12 February).
Good luck, and we look forward to seeing your photos in Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012!
If you’re up at the Observatory in the next few months, see if you can find a collection of meteoritic mirrors scattered throughout the Astronomy galleries. There are six mirrors on display next to objects and instruments that have played a key role in our study of the Universe. They’re beautiful, enigmatic objects and there’s no explanation or text in the galleries to tell you why they’re there. It’s up to you to investigate and come to your own conclusions…
Artist and blacksmith Matthew Luck Galpin’s ‘Anvilled Stars‘ are meteorites that have been heated, hammered,
ground and polished into mirrored works of art. The meteorites used to create ‘Anvilled Stars’ are thought to be more than 4.5 billion years old, and they started out as part of the asteroid belt during the early life of the Solar System. They reached Earth between 4000-6000 years ago after a journey lasting millions of years; they shattered as they entered the atmosphere and crashed into the northern Argentinian desert, witnessed by the local people. The place where they landed is now called Campo del Cielo – the Field of Heaven.
Meteorites are pieces of rock and metal that have fallen from space, providing some of the only physical evidence we have to study the formation of the Solar System. Mirrors are significant not only because they reflect us and our world, but also as the essential components of instruments such as telescopes that we use to study the Universe. By bringing the two together Matthew’s work is a creative response in relation to the Universe and our place in it. Matthew says of the artwork: “by working these iron meteorites and mirroring their trajectory, 
I feel closer to belonging to their journey through space and time, reaching a point of reflection of our part in it all”.
Each mirror is unique, and their irregular shapes and cloudy impurities are a joint product of their ancient origins and their transformation into manufactured objects in Matthew’s workshop. The six mirrors form an imaginary ‘constellation’ across the Observatory site and it’s up to visitors to locate them all. Five more of Matthew’s mirrors are currently on display at the Science Museum in South Kensington, forming a larger constellation of eleven Anvilled Stars spanning London – just the latest chapter in their continuing 4.5-billion year story.
Impact: Collisions & Catastrophes
The Impact exhibition (open at the Royal Observatory until 29 August) takes a look at the fiery debris that bombards earth from space, sometimes laying waste to vast areas and even triggering mass extinctions of plants and animals. It also explores the vital clues that asteroids and meteorites provide about the violent formation of the Solar System.
From meteor showers to giant asteroid impacts, the Earth is constantly bombarded by debris from space. A brand-new exhibition now open at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich takes a look at these fiery visitors and their
impact on our planet, which can cause death and destruction; laying
waste to vast areas and even triggering mass extinctions of plants and
animals. It also explores the vital clues that asteroids and meteorites
provide about the violent formation of the Solar System. Plus there’s
the chance to see and touch real space rocks in the Royal Observatory’s astronomy
galleries.
The Impact exhibition uses spectacular images, film and interactive exhibits to
explore how asteroids and comets have shaped our solar system, and what
we can learn from them. Running alongside will be a programme of talks, planetarium shows and family activities, running until the end of August.
Exhibition dates: 12 March-29 August 2011
Venue: Astronomy Centre, Exhibition Space, Royal Observatory
Admission: FREE
Opening hours: 10.00-17.00 daily (last admission 30 mins before closing)
Many people have remarked on the two beautiful pictures of
the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights which feature in our current Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition. Anyone who’s been lucky
enough to see the aurora for themselves will know what a beautiful spectacle it
can be, so it’s not surprising that we had quite a few photos of it entered
into this year’s competition (which made the judging very tricky).
Earth’s aurorae are ultimately caused by the Solar Wind, the stream of
energetic particles emitted by the Sun. Funnelled down towards the North and
South Poles by the our planet’s magnetic field, these particles strike
molecules of air high up in the atmosphere, causing them to glow and
produce a shimmering display of lights. Because of this, aurorae are most
commonly observed at high northern and southern latitudes and indeed both of the
award-winning aurora photos this year were taken close to the Arctic Circle:
one from Canada and one from Norway.
At the Astronomy Photographer awards ceremony on September 9th I
found myself chatting to photographer Max Alexander who mentioned that some years ago he’d taken a
picture of an unusual aurora while working in Sweden.
I was very curious to see his photo and Max has kindly agreed to let
us post it here on the ROG blog.
Max says:
“I took this photograph of the Northern Lights while on assignment for
a book publisher to photograph the Ice Hotel, in Kiruna, Northern
Sweden, a perfect latitude from which to view them.
“After several unsuccessful nights looking up, I met a couple who
invited me to their wedding ceremony in the adjacent Ice Chapel, and subsequent
reception. Every so often, I looked out of the window to see if the Northern
Lights would appear – and then they did, in all their breathtaking glory. I
convinced the wedding party to go out into the freezing arctic air, and they
were not disappointed. For twenty minutes there were audible gasps, as the
aurora borealis first snaked slowly, then rapidly danced across the sky in
giant and dazzling green arcs. I set my camera up quickly on my tripod, opened
up the aperture fully on a wide-angle lens, and then made a series of 15 second
exposures. Technically not difficult, I just needed to nail the composition.
“Back in London,
The Independent used one of those photographs on the cover of their magazine,
for a piece about Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland, the first person
to provide a scientific explanation of aurorae. I also contacted the University ofLondon
Observatory about
what caused this phenomenon and from that conversation I ended up doing a
diploma in astronomy at UCL, which in turn led me to take a series of
photographs on astronomy in the UK,
entitled Explorers of the Universe.
“I have reliably been told that this is a very rare photograph of the
intertwining twister effect that you can see and Patrick Moore is the only
person I have asked who has seen it in a photograph before. Mike Lockwood, a solar-terrestrial
scientist at theUniversity of Southampton, explained to me
that the aurora usually occurs in extended, curtain-like sheets. However,
sometimes, as here, it is restricted to a small rope-like form. The currents
flowing down the centre of such “auroral filaments” cause the
surrounding magnetic field to twist up into the helical forms that can be seen
here. The direction of the twist in this image shows that the dominant current
was upward. In other cases the current can be downward and the twist
would then be in the opposite direction.
“By the way, the couple who got married have since become good friends of
mine, and the pictures of the Northern Lights are part of their wedding
photographs.”
As the Sun continues to move into a more active phase of its eleven-year
cycle we can expect to see more auroral displays as increased solar activity
launches storms of particles in our direction. The Royal Observatory has a long
history of observing activity on the Sun and our Solar Stormwatch citizen science project allows members
of the public to help continue that research in the 21st Century (and also links to a great gallery of aurora images).
Finally, it’s worth pointing out that the Northern
and Southern Lights are not just an Earthly phenomenon, as these spectacular
new images and movies of aurorae flickering around the poles of Saturn show. The
data come from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft and we’re
very pleased that Tom Stallard and his
team at the University of Leicester have allowed us to incorporate some of the
images into the Saturn option of our Solar System planetarium show Meet the Neighbours. So if you’d like to see
the Saturnian aurora in all its glory up on the dome come along to the show and
vote for Saturn as your destination.
It’s all change in our temporary exhibitions gallery as we take down our summer exhibition Halley’s Holiday and install a new one showcasing the winners of the 2010 Astronomy Photographer of the Year Competition.
Halley’s Holiday was a special exhibition for children to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society, the UK’s national academy of science. The Royal Society is fifteen years older than the Royal Observatory and the two institutions have been closely associated for much of their history.
In the exhibition Halley the Space Shuttle took visitors on a tour of the Solar System, showing them beautiful views and highlighting some amazing facts about each of the planets. At the end visitors had the chance to vote for the planet they’d most like to take a holiday on. The votes are now in and the results are as follows:
Mercury: 287,582
Venus: 244,820
Earth: 449,643
Mars: 288,851
Jupiter: 239,953
Saturn: 261,202
Uranus: 278,791
Neptune: 368,119
I was very pleased to see that the Earth topped the poll as it’s (for now at least) my own favorite planet in the Universe. Like me, maybe our visitors were swayed by the fact that it’s the only place in the Solar System where you could enjoy your holiday without a space suit. I’m not sure why Jupiter got the least number of votes but perhaps it had something to do with its unpredictable clouds, its tendency to attract asteroids and a hurricane-force storm the size of the Earth which has been raging for several centuries. Who knows? Thanks anyway to everyone who voted.
The Astronomy Photographer of the Year exhibition begins at the ROG tomorrow, September 10th, and is completely free. We’ll be posting live updates from our brand new Twitter account for the Astronomy team – @ROGAstronomers; find out who the winners are before the exhibition opens by following this account or the hashtag #astrophoto10.