Astronomy Photographer Of The Year

[English Noodles]

The finalists for the Astronomy Photographer of 2009 award are in.

This picture by Australia's Ted Dobosz uses a 30-minute exposure to capture the Earth spinning. Stars make trails around the South Pole and the bottom of the photograph glows orange from light pollution.



In Bow Of Orion Canada's Karl Johnston captures the Northern Lights. This glowing curtain of coloured sky is caused by a stream of particles from the Sun called Solar Wind which are pulled in by the Earth's poles.



The Republic of Ireland's Michael O'Connell has been selected for his picture Blue Sky Moon. Unusually the Moon is shown here during the day through a dark blue sky - giving it the appearance of rising mysteriously from shadow.



Horsehead Nebula is the work of the UK's Martin Pugh. The Horsehead Nebula is a dark cloud of gas; dust and other materials. These condense to form dense knots, which will eventually become stars and planets. New stars have already formed inside part of the dust cloud, as can be seen on the bottom left.



Another British entry is Comet Holmes. Nick Howes captured the nucleus of this "dirty snowball" made of ice, rock and frozen gases. Comet Holmes has an orbit between Mars and Jupiter and can be seen faintly about every seven years.



A new generation of stars are condensing in this picture of Eta Carina nebula by the USA's Thomas Davis. This vast cloud of dust and gas is estimated to be between 6,500 and 10,000 light years away.



Another of Briton Martin Pugh's entries is Galactic Dust in Corona Australis. Dominating the frame are two blue-reflection nebulae which scatter the light of nearby stars. A much older globular cluster of thousands of stars can be seen at the top right.



This picture, taken by Vincent Miu of Australia, was taken with a two-hour exposure. It shows the trails of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon rising into the sky at sunset.



All the stars seen in the foreground of this image are from our own Milky Way, with the Centaurus-A galaxy in the centre, millions of light years beyond. By Michael Sidonio, Australia.



This photograph is a 40-minute exposure of the trails made by the stars over Death Valley as the Earth rotates. Nikhil Shahi, USA.

[natalie8]

Great photos. Where did you find them and are there more, such as runners up?

[English Noodles]

Sorry, here is where I got this from. Astronomy Photographer Of The Year 2009 Competition Shortlist - See All The Pictures Here | World News | Sky News

And the official site is here. Astronomy Photographer of the Year : Exhibitions : Visit the museum : NMM

This might also be of interest. Google Sky

[slackula]

Originally Posted by English Noodles

This picture, taken by Vincent Miu of Australia, was taken with a two-hour exposure. It shows the trails of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon rising into the sky at sunset.

That one is very nice.

[reinvented]

all very good

[melvbot]

Not a fan of the long exposure ones, they look like theyre Photoshopped. The moon ones my fave.

[S Landreth]

Didn’t know where to post it and did not want to start a thread, but since it was related to space,….enjoy.

Good kids putting a camera into (near) space and getting pictures back for under 150 US dollars.

We are a group of MIT students seeking to share the artistic aspects of science with others. On Sept. 2, 2009, we launched a digital camera into near-space to take photographs of the earth from high up above. (see “Flight”)

Several groups have accomplished similar feats (see “Other Launches”), but as far we know, we are the first group ever to:

(1) Complete such a launch on a budget of $150 total. All of our supplies (including camera, GPS tracking, weather balloon, and helium) were purchased for less than a grand total of $150.




Rest of the story: http://space.1337arts.com/

Note from the students: UPDATE: We will be posting a step-by-step illustrated guide on how to do a $150 launch shortly. Although Wired posted that we will charge 150 dollars, the guide will actually be free of charge. Also, we will be posting a Youtube video of the time-lapse photographs sometime tonight most likely

Wired site: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/09/the-150-space-camera-mit-students-beat-nasa-on-beer-money-budget?npu=1&mbid=yhp

[S Landreth]

^related,............I found the last 28 seconds of the video interesting (falling back to earth)

Welcome to space.1337arts.com — Project Icarus, home of the original $150 near-space launch!

Update (Sept. 17, 2009): WE HAVE TIME LAPSE!!!

The compressed pictures used for the time lapse video can be found at:


Index of /jlee08/Public/1337arts


(They are in the folder TimeLapse3 or in the zip file TimeLapse3.zip)


YouTube - 1337arts Icarus Project TimeLapse Video (Max Altitude: 93,000 ft)

Click to see the video on YouTube.


If you would like to request any of the original full-size images, email info[at]1337arts.com with the number of the image you would like to see and we will send you a copy. (The total size of all of the original images is 7GB!)


*The guy in the beginning of the picture is the Vice President of the company whose property we launched from. He came out to help us launch!


**Time lapse actually doesn’t look that great because the cooler was not stabilized.