Photographing a deep-space shark from the Kuwait desert

Over two nights camping in the desert in Kuwait, Ali Alobaidly used his telescopes and cameras to reel in a special cosmic target: the Shark Nebula.

Capturing over 28 hours of exposure of this faint, distant cloud of gas and dust, Ali's image The Quiet Predator features a remarkable level of detail for a nebula 650 light years away.

This very special catch saw Ali crowned the overall winner of ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026, the world's largest astrophotography competition.

Competition judge Steve Marsh explains: “Perfectly rendered softly glowing stars to the very edges of the frame, thin wisps of tenuous nebulosity consistent across the whole shark and a brilliantly resolved dark nebula patch for the eye put this at the very forefront of modern-day astrophotography."

Learn more about The Quiet Predator, including how it was taken and why it was awarded the top prize.

Why was this image selected as the winner of ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026?

Steve Marsh, competition judge, says: “You’re looking at an image that contains some extreme contrasts of light and dark areas, yet there are no bright bleached-out spots that obscure detail, and the darker areas still show rich detail inside them.

"The fine nebulosity captured is exquisite. You can zoom in to a very high magnification and there is never a drop in quality.”

He continues, "The stars are also perfectly rendered to the very edges of the frame. Often, stars can stretch and distort on the fringes of very deep and detailed images like this, but there simply is no place where this has happened.

"The way the surrounding gas of some of these larger stars glows a rich blue in this image is also really beautiful.”

Steve adds, "On top of this, the judges’ scrutiny of the image revealed several tiny galaxies visible behind the nebula. These galaxies are vast distances away and are being captured through a dense cloud of gas and dust, yet the photographer still manages to tease out detail in them. You can even see some of them have bright galactic cores, such as the galaxy up and to the right of the shark's ‘eye’." 

The judges make their decision 

Competition judge Steve Marsh describes the reaction to The Quiet Predator inside the judging room: "When you’re looking at images of the calibre necessary to reach the final stage, deciding a winner is rarely straightforward and there are always options. I can’t recall a time when we had an instant, unanimous vote during my tenure as a judge."  

However, he says, "The longer you debate an image, the closer you look at it. In doing so, this really helped us to see that The Quiet Predator had features that pushed it to the top of the pile. By the end, the judges all agreed that this image pretty much made our jaws drop." 

Winning the competition 

Ali's long nights photographing the nebula, alongside his work bringing out the best of the data in post-processing, rewarded him with the biggest prize in the global astrophotography competition. 

He reminisces, "Seeing the final image was deeply satisfying because it brought together several nights of work, solitude and patience in the desert into a single photograph." 

As for how he feels about being named 2026’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year, Ali says, "Winning the competition is incredibly meaningful, and I feel both honoured and proud that an image created under the skies of Kuwait has been recognised on such an international stage." 

You can follow Ali on Instagram, YouTube, or check out his website.