30 amazing images of our Universe – Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024 shortlist announced
30 amazing images of our Universe – Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024 shortlist announced
Join us on a tour of some of the most amazing sights in the Universe, courtesy of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year Competition 2024
Save 40% when you subscribe to BBC Science Focus Magazine!This image captures a sunspot erupting at the edge of the Sun where material is ejected from an active volcano. Dual filters were used to improve contrast and the stereoscopic effect. Photo by Wenlian Li/APOTY16
Every year the prestigious Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition treats us to amazing sights from across our solar system and beyond. This year's shortlisted images are certainly no exception.
From an incredible selection of aurora images to stunning views of our own Milky Way, it is going to be a very hard task to pick a winner from this selection.
Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year has been running for 16 years and is run in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine. The winners of this year's competition will be announced at a special ceremony on 12 September 2024.
The winning images will then be displayed in an exhibition at the National Maritime Museum from Saturday 14 September, alongside a selection of exceptional shortlisted photographs.
Arctic dragon
This impressive aurora, which seemingly takes the form of a dragon, resulted from a geomagnetic storm generated by a coronal mass ejection from the Sun. The photo was captured at the Arctic Henge, one of the only places in Iceland with clear skies that night. Photo by Carina Letelier Baeza/APOTY16
The galaxy devourer
CG4 (Cometary Globule 4) is a complex of nebulosity and dust with a very peculiar shape, located in the southern constellation of Puppis. The ‘head’ of the galactic worm has dimensions of about 1.5 light years. This image results from the work of a team of astrophotographers who joined forces to rent the powerful Newtonian 500-mm telescope from the Chilescope service. Photo by ShaRa Group/APOTY16
The dance of Jupiter's moons
This image shows the planet Jupiter surrounded by its moons Io and Ganymede. The use of a large aperture reveals several details on both the planet and the surface of the moons. Photo by Marco Lorenzi/APOTY16
Solar pulsation
This image captures a sunspot erupting at the edge of the Sun where material is ejected from an active volcano. Dual filters were used to improve contrast and the stereoscopic effect. Photo by Wenlian Li/APOTY16
Cosmos in reflection
The 100-megawatt molten salt tower photovoltaic power station pictured here has 12,000 super mirrors. In the daytime, the mirror matrix reflects the sunlight to the central heat-collection tower which can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 350,000 metric tonnes per year. At night, the mirrors reflect the light of nebulae, clusters, planets, the Milky Way and countless stars at different angles, making it difficult to tell what’s real and what’s not. Photo by Jianfeng Dai/APOTY16
This photograph of the Geminid meteor shower was taken under perfect conditions on La Palma, Spain. During the peak of the night, Sahner could easily spot two or three or more meteors per minute within the field of view. The panorama shows the entire winter Milky Way as seen from La Palma. Photo by Jakob Sahner/APOTY16
M100 and Ceres
In this image, the photographer was able to capture a dwarf planet, Ceres, in transit beyond the galaxy’s spiralling arms. Ceres shines brighter than the galaxy and moves quickly across the night sky. For this image, multiple long exposures were captured over eight hours to showcase the beauty of the Blowdryer Galaxy and the relatively quick speed of the dwarf planet Ceres. Photo by Damon Mitchell Scotting/APOTY16
Hunter's Moon and the ISS
This image captures the International Space Station (ISS) in transit across October’s full Moon, the Hunter’s Moon, approximately 12 hours after a partial lunar eclipse. The striking beauty of the full Moon is on display. Photo by Tom Glenn/APOTY16
Run to Carina
This photograph captures a sculpture in north-west Namibia. Made of stone, this is one of a group of sculptures known as the ‘Lone Men of Kaokoland’. No one knows who has placed these statues in this location. Photo by Vikas Chander/APOTY16
A Milky Way mimic
NGC 6744 is thought to resemble our own Milky Way as it would be seen from 30 million light years away. The colours of this galaxy are those of the classic spirals: magentas of the emission nebulae, blues of the large young stars, yellows of the older stars and yellow-browns from the dust spiralling into the core. From Earth, NGC 6744 appears about two-thirds the size of the full Moon. Photo by Kevin Morefield/APOTY16
The scream of a dying star
The Cygnus supernova afterglow is a popular object with astrophotographers. The image’s name is a nod to The Scream, the famous painting by Edvard Munch, symbolising the scream that continues to echo through space after the star’s death. Photo by Yann Sainty/APOTY16
The blue details of M45: The Pleiades
The Pleiades are a popular target among astrophotographers, but there are still many tiny details to be discovered. Photo by Sándor Biliczki/APOTY16
Total solar eclipse
A sequence of the total solar eclipse in Australia, April 2023. In this image, you can see the corona and the pink chromosphere, the prominences and Baily’s beads, chinks of sunlight that shine through due to the Moon’s rugged landscape. The image is made of seven superimposed pictures, one overexposed for the background and six others for the chromosphere and prominences. Photo by Gwenaël Blanck/APOTY16
This image was taken in Castle Hill, New Zealand, facing south as the Milky Way set. The amazing glow in this image is Aurora Australis. As the aurora was very far away, only the deep reds are visible in this image. Photo by Chester Hall-Fernandez/APOTY16
Misty mountains
This image is a close look at IC 5070 – The Pelican Nebula. The fine dust and gas structures are reminiscent of mist on mountains hit by the rising Sun, hence the title. Photo by Bence Tóth/APOTY16
Earth and Milky Way Galaxy Show
Mount Aso in Kumamoto Prefecture is the collective name for the five peaks often called the ‘Five Mountains of Aso’. One of the peaks, Nakadake, has a volcanic crater that is still active. This is a composite photograph with the foreground and sky photographed separately. Photo by Yoshiki Abe/APOTY16
M81 – A grand design spiral galaxy
M81, also known as Bode’s Galaxy, is about 11.75 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It is one of the brighter galaxies in the night sky. In the image’s background, some Integrated Flux Nebula (IFN) can be seen. IFN is dust outside the Milky Way’s galactic plane that is illuminated only by the stars in the Milky Way. Photo by Holden Aimar/APOTY16
Serpentine
This image was taken at Snettisham Beach, famous for its vast tidal mudflats that attract migrating birds in staggering numbers. The foreground subject is a dilapidated jetty, which was built in the Second World War to allow gravel extracted from the nearby pits to be moved by boat. The curved channel in the mudflat mirrors the trailing stars. Photo by Paul Haworth/APOTY16
GUM 12: The Gum Nebula
This is a small portion of the Vela supernova (AKA The Gum Nebula), which exploded about 11,000 years ago. Its remnants sprawl across eight degrees of the night sky (about 16 times the width of the full Moon), but are extremely dim, requiring very long exposure times to capture on camera. Photo by Charles Pevsner/APOTY16
Martian dementors
This image is taken from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) mission. By abstracting the image, the perspective is shifted and the Martian landscape transforms into something dark and atmospheric. Photo by Leonardo Di Maggio/APOTY16
Ancestral rocks
This image shows the Milky Way and the Roques de García, a group of rock formations located inside the Las Cañadas caldera in the Teide National Park. The image is a combination of two images; one of the foreground and one of the sky. Photo by Andrea Curzi/APOTY16
A view of the Eystrahorn Mountain on the night of a KP7 storm (a strong geomagnetic storm that can cause aurorae and upset electrical power systems). The intensity of the storm resulted in the impressive range of colours in the sky. Photo by Jose Miguel Picon Chimelis/APOTY16
The fire-spitting dragon
The photographer was able to capture the aurora in motion when it turned into something resembling a dragon’s head on a clear night. Photo by Moritz Telser/APOTY16
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Observations at night
This image captures the Isaac Newton Telescope at the edge of the telescope facility on La Palma, in the Canary Islands. Moving the focus away from the centre of the Milky Way, Sahner explores other interesting areas of the galaxy such as the Cygnus region, seen in the top right of the image with its bright and vibrant star-forming regions. Photo by Jakob Sahner/APOTY16
The International Space Station Daytime Moon Transit
This image shows the International Space Station (ISS) transiting the 51 per cent illuminated Moon. Photo by Kelvin Hennessy/APOTY16
The palette of the Himalayas
During the Spring Festival, the Sun and altostratus clouds acted together to create this huge corona, soaring above the Himalayas. The result is an enormous colour palette above the snowy peaks. Photo by Geshuang Chen/APOTY16
Saturn with six moons
Saturn’s decreasing ring tilt means the moon Titan is closer to Saturn from our viewpoint than it has been in over a decade. At the centre of the image, Tethys is just about to disappear behind Saturn, while Rhea, Enceladus and Mimas are on the left, and Dione is to the lower right. The planet’s shadow on the rings is prominent, as are the Cassini and Encke divisions. Photo by Andy Casely/APOTY16
This image shows an abandoned house in the middle of the Namib Desert with the Milky Way rising above it. The veil of clouds and halos around the stars creates a dreamlike effect. Photo by Stefan Liebermann
A whale sailing the Sun
This image shows the details of the Sun’s surface. The photographer views the shape of the filament to the left of the disc as an immense plasma whale traversing the solar surface. Photo by Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau/APOTY16
The inner dust lanes of M104 (The Sombrero galaxy)
The intense brightness of M104’s core often hides the details that lie inside the encircling ring of dust. In this image the dust appears to spiral into that core, floating on a wafer-thin layer as it falls towards the massive central black hole. The brighter, more colourful stars in the image are actually in the foreground − a part of our Milky Way galaxy. Photo by Kevin Morefield/APOTY16
James Cutmore is the picture editor of BBC Science Focus Magazine. He has worked on the magazine and website for over a decade, telling compelling science stories through the use of striking imagery. He holds a degree in Fine Art, and has been nominated for the British Society of Magazine Editors Talent Awards, being highly commended in 2020. His main areas of interest include photography that highlights positive technology and the natural world. For many years he was a judge for the Wellcome Trust's image competition, as well as judging for the Royal Photographic Society.
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