The winners of the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s 15th year of astronomy photography have been announced, and the images are nothing short of incredible.
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The world’s largest astrophotography contest consists of more than 4,000 separate submissions from 64 different countries, with each of the submissions going into a selection of different categories. The winners of 2023 were announced via a shortlist that was published in July, and now we able to see all of the notable submissions. The contest features 11 categories and below you will find winners for; Overall Winner, Auroras, Our Moon, Our Sun, and Stars & Nebulas.
The first image below is the winning photograph of 2023’s astrophotography contest, and it showcases the neighboring Andromeda galaxy. The image titled “Andromed, unexpected” was snapped by an amateur astronomer team led by Marcel Drechsler, Xavier Strottner and Yann Sainty. Notably, the plasma streak on the left-hand side of the image was a unique discovery, with researchers now studying it as its believed it could be largest discovered streak of its kind.
Overall Winner/Galaxies
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Image credit: Marcel Drechsler, Xavier Strottner and Yann Sainty
Exquisite new photos of the sun close to its once-a-decade “solar maximum” phase have been shortlisted for an annual astrophotography context.
With the sun now approaching its most powerful and intense period of activity for some years, the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition includes three incredible images that make use of the latest techniques to capture solar prominences and solar flares.
The competition, which is run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London, attracted 4,000 entries this year from amateur and professional photographers in 64 countries.
One of the most impressive shortlists is for the “Our Moon” category, which encompasses the lunar surface, the moon’s conjunction with planets, and lunar eclipses and transits. The images in this category showcase the moon in all its beauty, from its cratered surface to its dramatic shadows.
The winner of the “Our Sun” category—one of 11 categories—will be announced on September 14, 2023, along with the overall winner of the competition. The winning images will be displayed in an exhibition at London’s National Maritime Museum from September 16, 2023.
Solar Flare X1 from AR2994 in ‘Motion’
Portuguese photographer Miguel Claro—a renowned astrophotographer—took the main image, above, from Dark Sky Alqueva in the Évora district of Portugal.
His photo shows a solar flare—an intense burst of radiation from a sunspot—which is becoming more common as the sun ramps-up its activity. The image is from a 27-minute time lapse on April 30, 2022 of Active Region 2994 that Claro captured using a Sky-Watcher Esprit ED120 telescope.
The final stunning solar image shortlisted for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition in the “Our Sun” category is “The Great Mammoth,” an image of a solar prominence on the limb of the sun. Visible to the naked-eye only during a total solar eclipse, Rafael Schmall captured this a bright feature extending outward from the sun’s photosphere using a Lunt LS 100 H-alpha telescope.
It was taken from Zselic National Landscape Protection Area, an International Dark Sky Park in Zselickisfalud, Hungary
Nominated in the “People and Space” category is this remarkable ransit of a space station across the sun. However, while most such images use the International Space Station, this one shows the China Space Station (CSS), which has recently been completed.
Produced by selecting the nine clearest photos from captured video frames taken through a Lunt 152T telescope, the image was taken from by photographer Letian Wang from Beijing, China.
An amateur astrophotographer, Şenol Şanlı, based in Bursa, Turkey, created this captivating new image of the Sun using data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. The photo, which was shared on his Instagram account on January 3, is a combination of photographs taken between December 2and December 27, 2022.
It features two bands of shape-shifting sunspot clusters, belonging to two particularly large sunspot groups – A3176 and A3153 – situated in the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun, respectively. Both groups are seen moving from east to west in the image. Şanlı has digitally removed other visible sunspots on the Sun’s surface during this period, allowing the observer to closely track the subtle changes in these sunspot groups over time.
What are sunspots?
Sunspots are dark, cold, planet-size regions on the surface of the Sun. They arise due to disturbances in the Sun’s magnetic field, which can generate energetic solar events like solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
During December 2022, more than 113 sunspots were detected- the highest number recorded since December 2014. This total represents a significant increase compared to the average monthly count of 73.3 sunspots observed throughout the rest of the year before December.
The increase in sunspot activity results from the Sun entering a more active phase of its 11-year solar cycle, which is expected to reach its peak in 2025. Scientists have already recorded an increase in the frequency and strength of solar storms in 2022. If the number of sunspots remains high or increases further, 2023 will be even more active in terms of solar activity.
Images taken of the sun on December 4 by Eduardo Schaberger Poupeau, an astrophotographer, revealed five significant sunspots and two filaments of magnetism facing Earth. “In the southeast limb, we see an extensive prominence, also in the southern hemisphere, but within the disk, we can see the active region AR3153 that contains sunspots of a significant size, we also see a very extensive filament,” Poupeau told Spaceweather.com.
According to Nasa, a solar flare is described as an “intense burst of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots.” It is considered to be the largest explosive event in our solar system. “They are seen as bright areas in the sun and they can last from minutes to hours.”
Do all solar flares reach Earth?
The activity on the solar surface impacts earth only when it takes place on the side of the sun facing Earth. Since the flares are made of photons, their visibility can lead to direct impact.
The cause of such flares can be attributed to sunspots, “which are dark areas on the solar surface, contain strong magnetic fields that are constantly shifting”. When these fields quickly dissipate their stored energy, it can lead to the formation of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). For reference, a “moderate-sized sunspot is about as large as the Earth”.
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