This year’s Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition received a record 2700 entries by astrophotographers from 59 countries around the world. These astonishing pictures reveal fresh perspectives on astrophotography favourites alongside some of the great astronomical events of the last year.
We will showcase the winning images from all 11 categories over the next few days, but if you wish to see them all together on display, the Royal Observatory Greenwich has an exhibition open 18 September 2015 — 26 June 2016. Hours: 10.00–17.00, entry is free.
Stellar explosions are most often associated with supernovae, the spectacular deaths of stars. But new ALMA observations provide insights into explosions at the other end of the stellar life cycle, star birth. Astronomers captured these dramatic images as they explored the firework-like debris from the birth of a group of massive stars, demonstrating that star formation can be a violent and explosive process too.
This picture of Comet C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy was taken from Market Harborough, Leicestershire by 15-year-old George Martin on 18 December 2014 using his new 8-inch f/5 Newtonian telescope and a Nikon D3200 camera — winning image of the Young Competition category in the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition 2015.
In 1884, a delegation of international representatives convened in Washington, D.C. to recommend that Earth’s prime meridian marking zero degrees longitude should pass through the Airy Transit Circle (ATC) at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, England. But according to the GPS receivers of surveyors and smartphones of London tourists today, why does the line of zero longitude run 102 metres east of the ATC?
