The Royal Greenwich Observatory and BBC Sky at Night magazine arrive with the finalists of the ‘Astronomy Photographer of the Year 13’ contest. As always, the contest brings with it a series of amazing images that show us new and curious perspectives on atmospheric and spatial phenomena. Views that show us how wonderful the cosmos is.
This year, Chinese photographer Suchan Dong was the winner of the ‘Our Sun’ series and the overall winner of the contest for his incredible photography of the annular solar eclipse that occurred in June 2020. Titled ‘The Golden Ring’ , the image stands out for its minimalist composition, the cloudy aura of the sky and the square format that generates a harmony of the captivating figures.
This image has beaten the photographer the grand prize of £ 10,000 and the main focus during the exhibition that will take place from September 18 to August 7 at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Likewise, the winners and a selection of winners from the past will be published in an official competition book, which can be pre-ordered from September 30.
Likewise, the Spanish Sergio Díaz Ruiz received the ‘Annie Maunder award for innovation’ for his photograph “Another cloudy day on Jupiter”. This award is for those photographers who take royalty-free stock images and transform them to give a fresh and eye-catching view of the universe. These images are captured by research telescopes and contestants must manipulate those raw files to obtain new images.
The task is not so simple considering that much of this information has to be found by analyzing the coordinates of the celestial helmet and the observatories have a search range of space. In addition, the capture systems can vary according to observatories and even they may be capturing gamma rays, x-rays, microwaves, infrared; which creates a very complex image base to navigate.
To learn more about the contest and the conditions of how to participate next year, you can visit the website. Here are the other finalists of the contest:
Our sun
Auroras
Galaxies
Our moon
People and space
Comet and asteroid planets
Celestial landscapes
Stars and nebulae
Young competition
Manju Mehrotra Family Consortium Award for Best Newcomer
Annie Maunder Award for Image Innovation
____
Images | courtesy of the Royal Greenwich Observatory | Web page