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.
A stunning juxtaposition of an ethereal solar system body, long-period comet C/2014 E2 Jacques, and the vast, heart-shaped emission nebula IC 1805, some 7,500 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia — winning image of the Planets, Comets & Asteroids category in the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition 2015.
This image is the last winner we have from the eleven categories in the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition 2015 — that of using a robotic telescope. It shows the power of remote imaging, since Sebastian Voltmer in Germany used the iTelescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia to capture Comet C/2013 A1 passing very close to Mars on 19 October 2014.
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?
