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Check Out Ten Spectacular Space Images From the Astronomy Photographer of the Year Contest
The annual competition for professional and amateur astrophotographers released its shortlisted images, which capture the beauty of the cosmos seen from Earth
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As more of the world lives under light-polluted skies, astrophotographers are a connection to the cosmos. With their high-tech telescopes, cameras and image editing software, they can magnify what might only appear as a nondescript point of light and make its details larger than life.
Last week, the ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition unveiled the images on its shortlist. These entries, commended by the judges, feature colorful auroras, dazzling solar prominences, glowing galaxies and nebulas and breathtaking skyscapes.
Now in its 17th year, the annual competition is “a tribute to those who turn their eyes to the stars and share what they see with the world,” says Sam Wen, founder and CEO of the astrophotography camera company ZWO, in a statement. “We believe that astrophotography is not only a way to record the cosmos, but also a way to inspire curiosity, foster education and build communities that transcend borders.”
This year, the contest is run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich, supported financially by ZWO and offered in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine. Amateur and professional astrophotographers across 69 countries submitted more than 5,500 entries to the judges.
Winners from this year’s contest will be announced on September 11 and displayed at London’s National Maritime Museum beginning September 12. But until then, you can marvel at the shortlist.
Here’s a selection of ten of those stunning photographs.
Close-up of a Comet by Gerald Rhemann and Michael Jäger
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A special celestial visitor dazzled astronomers last fall: Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) made its closest approach to the sun in September, then zoomed past Earth on its way out of the solar system.
Avid skywatchers across the world tried to catch a glimpse of the spectacle. Astrophotographers Gerald Rhemann and Michael Jäger traveled to Namibia to get this colorful shot on September 30, which features the comet’s two tails—the dust tail in white and the ion tail in blue.
Though it may not seem like it from many photos, comets have two tails. The dust tail is the trail of particles that splinter off the comet’s icy and dusty nucleus due to solar radiation, and they continue to follow the comet in its orbit. The ion tail is a trail of gas that’s been charged by the sun’s ultraviolet light, and this blue-colored tail aims directly away from the sun.
In this case, the two tails look to be overlapping, but that’s just due to the viewing angle. The blue ion tail appears to have kinks because of strong solar winds when it was photographed.
Solar System Portrait by Sophie Paulin
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Arranged in a neat alignment, the seven other planets in our solar system are a striking sight. Astrophotographer Sophie Paulin captured each of these shots from Germany in 2023 and 2024, then put them together in this construction.
Jupiter looms large at the center, its swirling storms adding an air of mystery. Mercury and Venus are partially shrouded in darkness, and Mars’ characteristic red hue is on full display. Saturn’s rings draw the eye toward the right, and the bright blues of Uranus and Neptune at the end come from the ice giants’ richness in methane.
Dragon Tree Trails by Benjamin Barakat
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A night sky of swirling star trails is a fitting backdrop for this lone dragon’s blood tree, often called the most “alien” tree on Earth.
Astrophotographer Benjamin Barakat traveled to Yemen’s island of Socotra, roughly 210 miles southeast of the country’s coast. One of the island’s most famous plants is the umbrella-shaped dragon’s blood tree, named for the dark red sap that leaks from any injury to the bark. With 300 individual exposures, Barakat captured the cosmos rotating around the otherworldly tree.
Total Solar Eclipse by Louis Egan
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In a panorama, young astrophotographer Louis Egan displays the phases of the total solar eclipse that captivated viewers across North America on April 8, 2024, casting a shadow across a vast stretch of the continent.
Watching from Coaticook in Quebec, Canada, Egan captured the march of the moon across the sun’s face, as the satellite appeared to take a progressively larger, then smaller, “bite” out of our star. At the center of the lineup is a high dynamic range (HDR) portrait of totality, consisting of approximately 200 shots with varying exposure times.
In this way, the image captures both the bright corona, visible from Earth only during a total solar eclipse, as well as fine details that standard exposures would miss.
Aurora Over Mono Lake: A Rare Dance of Light by Daniel Zafra
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California is not your typical destination for a trip to see the northern lights—but as a surge in solar activity supercharged Earth’s atmosphere in October 2024, the colorful displays of auroras that typically grace the Arctic Circle dipped much farther south than usual. Here, a red, pink and yellow glow rises over the state’s Mono Lake, not far from Yosemite National Park.
Daniel Zafra grabbed this shot with a five-second exposure, highlighting the reflection of the lights in the lake’s salty water.
Eight-Panel Mosaic of M31: Stars, Nebulae and Central Bulge by Chuhong Yu, Jingyao Hong, Xi Zhu, Yaguang Wan
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Our closest major galactic neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, shines bright in this highly detailed mosaic image. Across several nights between October and December 2024, the photographers took a series of shots of the spiral galaxy, totaling 216 hours of exposure time.
Some A.I.-powered tools were used to increase the image quality, reduce noise, minimize blur and remove stars from the foreground. Along with other adjustments made with tools like Photoshop, the end result is a shockingly precise view of the galaxy—the yellow mist around the spiral is actually tens of thousands of stars.
Lunar Occultation of Saturn by Chayaphon Phanitloet
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Lunar occultations—moments when the moon passes in front of a planet or other astronomical object, from Earth’s perspective—are special opportunities for astrophotographers. During this occultation of Saturn, the light reflecting off the gas giant became briefly blocked by the moon.
This composite image captures the relative position of these celestial bodies over time, as Saturn appears to approach the moon, pass behind it, then slink away. Chayaphon Phanitloet put together this view from a quick 0.23-millisecond exposure of the moon and four-millisecond exposure of Saturn, captured from Bua Yai, Thailand, on October 15, 2024.
Moonrise Perfection Over the Dolomites by Fabian Dalpiaz
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A full moon—the last supermoon of 2024—rises over the Dolomites in northeastern Italy, bathed in a red glow by the setting sun. As a supermoon, this full moon appears slightly brighter and larger than the average—and it perfectly fills the gap between two of the mountains’ rugged protrusions.
Electric Threads of the Lightning Spaghetti Nebula by Shaoyu Zhang
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Like a pile of glowing, electrified noodles, the Spaghetti Nebula is a swirl of thread-like structures. It’s a supernova remnant—the leftover material from an explosion that destroyed a star—located roughly 3,000 light-years away on the border between the constellations Taurus and Auriga.
It can be a tough target to see, because it’s rather faint and obscured by a cloud of dust. But it’s a staggering size—its diameter in the night sky is the distance of about six full moons lined up end to end. The photographer, Shaoyu Zhang, captured Oxygen-III data to bring out the blues and greens in the image and took more than 148 hours of exposures.
Cave of Stars by Yoshiki Abe
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This remote cave in Nagato, Japan, has a stunning view of the core of the Milky Way through its dramatic entrance. Realizing the opportunity for a photo, Yoshiki Abe waited for the right conditions, then, on October 12, 2024, set up a tripod inside the cave.
At blue hour, Abe captured the foreground—the internal walls and water—gently lit by the setting sun. Then, on the same night, the photographer shifted the tripod to capture the Milky Way, stacking photos to enhance the desired light and reduce distracting noise from other celestial sources.