Categories & prizes

The Astronomy Photographer of the Year Competition 2012 is now open! Read on to find out what you could win by entering this year.

To keep up with the latest Astronomy Photographer of the Year news you can join our Flickr group, like the Royal Observatory on Facebook or even follow our astronomers on Twitter.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012 has competition categories for everyone, including young astrophotographers, and there are some great prizes to be won.

There are four main competition categories, including the category for under-16s: Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year. Judges will select one winner, one runner-up and three highly-commended entries from each category, before deciding an overall winner to be awarded the prestigious title of Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012.

And this year there are again three special awards – one for newcomers, another for shots that creatively capture people and space, and a third for images that have been taken by robotic/remote telescopes and that have been processed by the entrant.

The categories and prizes are:

Overall winner – Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2011

• Prize: £1500

Earth and Space

This is for photos that include landscape, people and other 'Earthly' things. Your picture should also include an astronomical subject – for example the stars, the Moon, or near-Earth phenomena such as aurora.

• Winner: £500
• Runner-up: £250
• Highly commended entries: £125

Our Solar System

This is for photos of our Sun and its family of planets, moons, asteroids and comets.

• Winner: £500
• Runner-up: £250
• Highly commended entries: £125

Deep Space

This is for photos of anything beyond our Solar System, including stars, nebulae and galaxies.

• Winner: £500
• Runner-up: £250
• Highly commended entries: £125

Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year

This is the competition category for under-16s.

• Winner: £500
• Runner-up: £250
• Highly commended entries: £125

The judges will also award three special prizes:

People and Space

This is for photos that include people in a creative and original way.

• Prize: £350
• Runner-up: £125

Best Newcomer

This is for photos taken by people who have taken up the hobby in the last year and have not entered an image into the competition before. The judges will give special consideration to those using simple and inexpensive start-out kit so please update your photo’s Flickr description to say what you've used.

• Prize: £350

Robotic Scope

A robotic telescope is considered to be one that is operated remotely, via the internet, and publicly available to all. This special prize will only be awarded for images captured in this way and processed by the entrant.

• Prize: £350

Prizes will be payable in Pounds Sterling by cheque. All winners will also receive a one year subscription to Sky at Night Magazine.

Winners will receive their prizes within 6-8 weeks of the awards ceremony on 20 September 2012.