Winners of the 2024 Astronomy Photographer of the Year awards

This week, Royal Observatory Greenwich announced the winners of its Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. There are 11 categories, ranging from photos of skyscapes, the moon, galaxies, and more.

According to the observatory, there were over 3,500 entries for this year's competition.

Starting today, the winning images and runner-ups will be on display at a gallery in the National Maritime Museum. If you don't happen to live in Greenwich, you can also view the runners-up for each category on the museum's website.

Overall Winner: Distorted Shadows of the Moon’s Surface Created by an Annular Eclipse by Ryan Imperio

Distorted Shadows of the Moon’s Surface Created by an Annular Eclipse, shot by Ryan Imperio in Odessa, Texas, was crowned the overall winner of the contest, as well as the winner of the 'Our Sun' category. According to a press release from the Observatory, Imperio said 'The images selected each year are absolutely astonishing and I am both thrilled and honoured to have my photo among them. I had hoped my image would be shared in some way but never expected to be selected as a winner, let alone Overall Winner!’

About the image: This is a sequence of continuously captured images showing the progression of Baily’s beads at third contact during the 2023 annular eclipse. Baily’s beads are formed when sunlight shines through the valleys and craters of the Moon’s surface, breaking the eclipse’s well-known ring pattern, and are only visible when the Moon either enters or exits an eclipse. These are a challenge to capture due to their brevity and the precise timing needed.

Equipment used: Nikon D810 camera, iOptron SkyGuider Pro mount, Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary lens

600 mm F8, ISO 640, multiple 1/1,000-second exposures

Skyscapes Winner: Tasman Gems by Tom Rae

About the image: This photograph shows the rugged peaks of the Tasman Valley reaching up to the impressive features of the southern hemisphere summer night sky. It includes the hydrogen clouds of the Gum Nebula (central red region) and various other regions of active star formation stretched throughout the fainter arms of the Milky Way. This part of the night sky that tends to be less photographed, due to the faintness of the Milky Way band.

Equipment used: Nikon Z 6 astro-modified and Nikon Z7 cameras, iOptron SkyGuider Pro mount, Sigma 40 mm F1.4 Art and Sigma 28 mm F1.4 Art lens

Sky: ISO 1,600, 40 mm F1.8, 31 x 30-second exposures; 
Foreground: ISO 100, 28 mm F10-14, 9 x 4-second exposures

Our Moon Winner: Shadow peaks of Sinus Iridum by Gábor Balázs

About the image: This photograph shows Sinus Iridum, also known as the ‘Bay of Rainbows,’ a 260-kilometre diameter bay bordered by several smaller craters. The photographer used a monochrome camera with a filter to capture the area. The crater visible in the upper right corner, Pythagoras, is particularly noteworthy and is almost visible from the side due to the libration, the wavering of the Moon as viewed from Earth.

Equipment used: Heyde-Zeiss refractor telescope, ZWO green filter, ZWO ASI178MM-pro camera

4,500 mm, F15

Aurorae Winner: Queenstown Aurora by Larryn Rae

About the image: The Aurora Australis captured above the mountains in Queenstown. It is a 19-image panorama capturing all the fast-moving beams that lit up the sky in February 2023. The photographer used an astro-modified camera to capture all the pink hues of the aurora which makes for an incredibly dynamic final image.

Equipment used: Canon EOS R5 H-alpha modified camera, 35 mm panorama

F2.8 ISO 3,200, Sky: 8 second-exposure, Foreground: 30-second exposure

The Sir Patrick Moore Prize for Best Newcomer Winner: SH2-308: Dolphin Head Nebula by Xin Feng and Miao Gong

About the image: SH2-308 (the Dolphin Head Nebula) is at a low angle and can only be shot for five hours a day. This image comprises a total of ten days of shooting and post-processing with PixInsight. The main body of the nebula and the background stellar wind are both prominent.

Equipment used: Takahashi TOA-130NS telescope, Sky-Watcher EQ8 mount, ZWO ASI6200MM-Cool camera

1,000 mm F7.7, Gain 100, 144 x 600-second H-alpha exposures, 140 x 600-second OIII exposures

Young Winner: NGC 1499, A Dusty California, by Daniele Borsari (age 14)

About the image: This image features a deep integration on the California Nebula, NGC 1499, an emission nebula in the constellation of Perseus. It’s located at a distance of about 1,000 light years from Earth and it’s visible thanks to the ionization of gases by the blue giant star ξ Persei (Menkib).

Equipment used: ZWO ASI533MC Pro camera, Samyang 135 mm F2.0 lens, Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer mount

135 mm F2.8, 263 × 300-second exposures, 228 × 180-second exposures (33 hours 19 minutes total exposure)

Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation Winner: Anatomy of a Habitable Planet by Sergio Díaz Ruiz

About the image: This seemingly alien world is actually our endangered planet, Earth, as a distant civilisation might study it. This image was created by mixing the 16 bands monitored by the GOES-18 weather satellite to encode land masses, oceans and atmospheric features as different colours.

Equipment used: Original data from GOES-18 ABI (Bands 1 to 16 (0.47 to 13.3 microns)) from 18 February 2024 and Suomi-NPP VIIRS (0.5 to 0.9 microns) from 2012–2020

Stars & Nebulae Winner: SNR G107.5-5.2, Unexpected Discovery (The Nereides Nebula in Cassiopeia) by Marcel Drechsler, Bray Falls, Yann Sainty, Nicolas Martino, and Richard Galli

About the image: This impressive photograph is the result of 3,559 frames, 260 hours of exposure time and telescopes on three continents. The team worked to explore and photograph a previously unknown gigantic supernova remnant (SNR) in the centre of the famous constellation Cassiopeia. The international team of amateur astronomers is under the scientific leadership of Professor Robert Fesen (USA). The fact that amateurs have made such a discovery is a testament to how important their role has become in today’s astronomy.

Equipment used: Takahashi FSQ-106EDX4 telescope, Sky-Watcher EQ6 Pro and Paramount MyT GEM mounts, QHYCCD QHY600PH-M, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro and ZWO ASI6200MM Pro cameras

530 mm and 382 mm F3.6 and F5, 258 hours 32 minutes total exposure with 60-second, 180-second, 300-second and 600-second subframes

Planets, Comets & Asteroids Winner: On Approach by Tom Williams

About the image: This false-colour composite shows the phases of Venus on approach to inferior conjunction, which is when Venus and the Earth appear close on the same side of the Sun. Using ultra-violet and infrared filters, the intricate cloud structure within the upper atmosphere of the planet is revealed. Despite Venus’s rotation period being many months long, the atmosphere is far from stationary, circling the planet in around four days. This makes UV imaging of Venus particularly interesting as the planet is much more dynamic than it otherwise would be if viewed in the visible spectrum.

Equipment used: Sky-Watcher 400P (16") GoTo Dobsonian Reflector telescope, Baader Bessel (U)BVRI and RG610 filters, ZWO ASI462MM camera

5,000 mm F12.3, multiple 15-millisecond exposures

People & Space Winner: High-Tech Silhouette by Tom Williams

About the image: This H-alpha image of the Sun features the silhouette of the International Space Station (ISS) transiting the eastern solar limb. Crossing the field-of-view in just 0.2 seconds, ISS transits of the Sun are particularly rare for any one location on Earth. The Sun was active and a prominence right next to the station’s transit location can be seen.

Equipment used: Sky-Watcher Evostar 120 telescope, Daystar Quark Chromosphere filter, Sky-Watcher EQ3 Pro mount, Player One Apollo-M Max (IMX432) camera

4,300 mm F35, ISS: 19 x 0.70-millisecond exposures; Sun: 7,500 x 12-millisecond exposures

Galaxies Winner: Echoes of the Past by Bence Tóth and Péter Feltóti

About the image: This picture shows the galaxy NGC 5128 and its surrounding tidal wave system as well as a visualization of the relativistic jet, powerful jets of radiation and particles travelling close to the speed of light. This interesting target can only be shot from the southern hemisphere, so the photographers travelled to Namibia to capture the image.

Equipment used: Custom-built 200/800 Newton astrograph telescope, Astronomik Deep-Sky LRGB filters, Antlia V-Pro LRGB filters and Antlia 3 nm H-alpha bandpass filter, Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro and Sky-Watcher EQ6 mounts, ZWO ASI2600MM Pro camera

800 mm F4, 16.2-hour L, 5.3-hour R, G and B, and 5.6-hour H-alpha exposures