Feast Your Eyes on the 12 Winning Astronomy Photographer of the Year Images - Gizmodo

These photographers, winners of the 2021 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition run by Royal Observatory Greenwich, have used their considerable skills to showcase the wonders of our local universe in gorgeous detail.

This competition-winning photograph of the Sun is mostly a shot of the Moon.

With less than a minute to spare before the eclipse, though, there was a parting in the clouds, according to a Royal Observatory Greenwich release.

The image shows all parts of the Milky Way that are visible from Earth and was put together from images taken in China (in Sichuan and Qinghai) and New Zealand (Lake Pukaki) to capture elements of the galaxy exclusively visible to the northern and southern hemispheres, respectively.

This photograph is evocative of the iconic Earthrise, but it’s a redux of that photograph: Instead of Earth rising over an astronaut on the Moon, it’s Venus behind the Moon, taken by a viewer on Earth in June 2020.

Taken in Forges-les-Bains, France, the photo is a different look at the familiar sight of the lunar surface, one that removes Earth from the conversation entirely.

“This is how the Solar System might look to a space traveller,” said competition judge László Francsics, an astrophotographer and the Chairman of the Hungarian Astrophotographers’ Association, in a Royal Observatory Greenwich release.

“Cosmic distance and celestial objects can be seen from a new perspective in one single image.” Indeed, it’s the sort of photograph that makes you say “wait, what?” as your mind wraps around where the photographer was and exactly what’s captured in the picture.

Sorry to disrupt your nice vacation across the cosmos, but this image is titled “Lockdown.” It was taken in January 2021 in Windsor, in England.

“With window frames paralleling prison bars, this piece is a reminder of the realities of lockdown life for so many of us,” said judge Sue Prichard, a senior curator for arts at Royal Museums Greenwich, in a Royal Observatory Greenwich release.

Taken in Cook Station, Missouri in January 2021, the photograph captures a meteor from the now-obsolete constellation Quadrans Muralis.

Because the photo captures the meteor’s path instead of the object itself, it looks like someone took a pair of scissors to spacetime, cutting a thin line through which some new dimension might exist.

This image is wild because the Moon feels within reach, and because the photo was taken on a swath of Earth that doesn’t feel particularly Earthlike.

“While nebulae are often known for resembling colourful clouds in space, this photographer has managed to beautifully use a rainbow of colour to tease out the different gases in the California Nebula,” said competition judge Emily Drabek-Maunder, an astrophysicist, astronomer, and science communicator at Royal Observatory Greenwich, in an observatory release.

“A spectacular dance between science and art,” said Imad Ahmed, a competition judge and the director of the New Crescent Society, in a Royal Observatory Greenwich statement

The image was taken by the Hubble Space Telescope on a number of different channels and color edited