The winners of the fourth competition were announced yesterday evening at a ceremony at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London. The best images will be on display until 5 February next year in a free exhibition at the observatory’s Astronomy Centre. Here are our favourites. Caroline Morley
Star Icefall
This is the winner of the Earth and Space category and was taken at a frozen waterfall in Nagano, Japan. In the sky we can clearly see Orion, Taurus and the Pleiades.
(Image: Masahiro Miyasaka)
Pleiades Cluster
Also featuring the Pleiades, this photo was taken by 15-year-old Jacob von Chorus – winner of the Young Astronomy Photographer category. In addition to the famous Seven Sisters, we can see the other stars in the cluster as well as the swirling wisps of a diaphanous gas cloud.
(Image: Jacob von Chorus)
Transit of Venus 2012 in Hydrogen-Alpha
The transit of Venus in June caused much excitement, but many people’s view of this rare astronomical event was obscured by clouds. Chris Warren managed to catch a single glimpse of Venus’s black disc crossing the sun, captured here in this unprocessed raw frame shot, which was taken using a hydrogen-alpha (Ha) filter. The image won the Our Solar System category.
(Image: Chris Warren)
The Milky Way, viewed from the Piton de l’Eau, Réunion Island
Although this image records the relatively constant form of the Milky Way over a lake on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion, Luc Perrot still had to wait two years for the right conditions to take this photo. On the Earth to the right, Piton des Neiges, the highest peak of Réunion and also a volcano, is silhouetted by the sun, balancing the light from the centre of our galaxy to the left in the sky. This image was highly commended in the Earth and Space category.
(Image: Luc Perrot)
Simeis 147 Supernova Remnant
Seen here is , the remains of a supernova 3000 light years away, which can be seen in the sky near Taurus. Forty thousand years ago, a massive star exploded as a supernova. It left behind this debris, which is colliding with dust and gas as it continues to expand. This image came runner-up in the Deep Space category.
(Image: Rogelio Bernal Andreo)
