A galactic worm devours stars. A plasma whale glides across the surface of the sun. And a strange dragon dances with an aurora borealis. This is not the plot of a fantasy novel, this is our incredible universe captured in breathtaking detail.
The Royal Observatory, Greenwich has announced the shortlisted images for the 2024 Astronomy Photographer of the Year award. The finalists were selected from over 3,500 images submitted by professional and amateur photographers from 58 countries. The winner will be announced on 12 September and an exhibition of the best images will be on display in London at the National Maritime Museum from 14 September.
Gwenaël Blanck traveled to Australia in April 2023 to observe the total solar eclipse that lasted 62 seconds. In this collage, he shows the corona and the pink chromosphere, the prominences and the Baily’s beads, these slits of sunlight that show through the uneven relief of the Moon. The image is composed of seven superimposed images, one overexposed for the background and six others for the chromosphere and the prominences. Image: © Gwenaël Blanck (France)
This photograph of the Geminid meteor shower was taken in perfect conditions on La Palma. At the height of the night, Sahner could easily spot two or three meteors per minute in the field of view. The panorama shows the entire winter Milky Way as seen from La Palma in natural RGB color with additional detail in H-alpha. Image: © Jakob Sahner (Germany)
M81, also known as the Bode Galaxy, is located about 11.75 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Ursa Major. It is one of the brightest galaxies in the night sky. In the background of the image, an Integrated Outflow Nebula (IFN) can be seen. The IFN is dust located outside the Milky Way’s galactic plane and illuminated only by the Milky Way’s stars. Image: © Holden Aimar (USA), 14 years old
View of Eystrahorn mountain (Iceland) on the night of a KP7 storm (a strong geomagnetic storm that can cause northern lights and disrupt power grids). The intensity of the storm gave rise to an impressive array of colors in the sky. Image: © José Miguel Picon Chimelis (Spain) JOSE CHIMELIS
The photographer was able to capture the Aurora Borealis in motion, as it transformed into a sort of dragon head on a clear night. Telser chose to use black and white to emphasize the contrast of the Aurora Borealis with the dark sky. Image: © Moritz Telser (Italy) MORITZ TELSER
This image shows details of the Sun’s surface. The photographer sees the shape of the filament to the left of the disk as a huge plasma whale crossing the solar surface. Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau took this photo by recording two videos (one for the disk and one for the prominences), each consisting of 850 frames. Image: © Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau (Argentina)
This image shows an abandoned house in the middle of the Namib Desert with the Milky Way above. The sky was captured with a star sensor to reduce the ISO. The veil of clouds and the halos around the stars create a dreamlike effect. Image: © Stefan Liebermann (Germany)
This impressive aurora, which appears to take the form of a dragon, is the result of a geomagnetic storm (G2 level) generated by a coronal mass ejection. The photo was taken at Arctic Henge, one of the only places in Iceland where the sky was clear that night. Image: © Carina Letelier Baeza (Chile) Cari Letelier
This image shows the International Space Station (ISS) transiting over October’s full moon, the Hunter’s Moon, about 12 hours after a partial lunar eclipse. The full moon’s striking beauty is highlighted, with its mix of rugged highlands, bright crater rays, and darker seas. Image: © Tom Glenn (USA)
Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture is the collective name for the five peaks often referred to as the “Five Mountains of Aso.” One of them, Nakadake, has a volcanic crater that is still active. Abe wanted this image to show how the Milky Way has been monitoring activity on Earth since prehistoric times. This is a composite photograph with the foreground and sky photographed separately but without moving the tripod. Image: © Yoshiki Abe (Japan)
In this image, the photographer was able to capture a dwarf planet, Ceres, more than a billion times smaller than its galactic counterpart, transiting beyond the galaxy’s spiral arms. Ceres shines brighter than the galaxy and moves quickly across the night sky. For this image, multiple long exposures were captured over an eight-hour period to highlight the beauty of the Hairdryer Galaxy and the relatively fast speed of the dwarf planet Ceres. Image: © Damon Mitchell Scotting (UK)
CG4 (Cometary Globule 4) is a complex of nebulosity and dust with a very particular shape, located in the southern constellation of Pupa. The “head” of the galactic worm measures about 1.5 light-years. This image is the result of the work of a team of astrophotographers: they joined forces to rent the powerful 500 mm Newtonian telescope of the Chilescope service, process the raw files and then vote for the best images. Image: © ShaRa
This image was taken at Snettisham Beach, famous for its vast mudflats that attract huge numbers of migratory birds. The subject in the foreground is a dilapidated jetty, built during the Second World War to allow the transport of gravel from nearby quarries by boat. The curved channel in the mudflat reflects the shooting stars. Image: © Paul Haworth (UK)
This photograph shows a sculpture in northwestern Namibia. Made of stone, it is part of a group of sculptures known as the “Lone Men of Kaokoland” [as the region was formerly known]. No one knows who placed them there. A long exposure of the running stone man was first taken, then the tripod was moved to get a clear view of the horizon. Image: © Vikas Chander (India)
During the Spring Festival, the Sun and altostratus clouds acted in concert to create this immense corona, which rises above the Himalayas. The result is a huge palette of colors above the snow-capped peaks. Image: © Geshuang Chen (China)
The decreasing tilt of Saturn’s rings means that the moon Titan is closer to Saturn from our perspective than it has been in more than a decade. In the center of the image, Tethys is about to disappear behind Saturn, while Rhea, Enceladus, and Mimas are to the left and Dione is at the lower right. The planet’s shadow on the rings is prominent, as are the Cassini and Encke divisions. Image: © Andy Casely (Australia)
The intense brightness of M104’s core often obscures details inside the ring of dust that surrounds it. In this image, the dust appears to wrap around this core, floating in a very thin layer as it falls toward the massive central black hole. The brightest and most colorful stars in the image are actually in the foreground—part of our own Milky Way galaxy. Image: © Kevin Morefield (USA)
The afterglow of the Cygnus supernova is a popular object for astrophotographers, but the idea here was to take advantage of the high-quality sky and long exposure time to highlight rarely seen details, such as the outer shell of the supernova remnant. The image’s name is a nod to Edvard Munch’s famous painting The Scream, symbolizing the scream that continues to resonate through space after the star has died. Image: © Yann Sainty (France)
