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 favourite target for amateur and professional astronomers alike, the Orion Nebula is once again gracing the autumn-winter skies in the Northern Hemisphere. It is just as glorious in the infrared, as seen by the Very Large Telescope and the HAWK-I camera.
To preserve the sense of the Moon caught at exactly at half phase, Hungarian astrophotographer András Papp carefully balanced multiple images of the darkened hemisphere, terminator and illuminated face of the Moon, all recorded on the same night — winning image of the Our Moon category in the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition 2015.
Using new observations from ESO’s VLT Survey Telescope, astronomers have discovered three different populations of young stars within the Orion Nebula Cluster. This unexpected discovery adds very valuable new insights for the understanding of how such clusters form.
