Want to see some truly stellar photography?
Head on down to the Astronomy Photographer Of The Year. It’s free, it’s in the National Maritime Museum, and it’s ready to blow your mind into cosmic dust until summer of 2025.
This is the 16th year they’ve held the competition, and they’ve received thousands of entries from dozens of countries, whittling them down to just the best 100 which they’ve displayed in the lightboxes that line the walls of the museum. And there are some insanely good images in there. Here are a few notable ones:
A Night with the Valkyries by Jose Miguel Picon Chimelis
Taken during a strong geomagnetic storm in Iceland, this shimmering beauty is like a rainbow that spilled out of the sky.
High-tech Silhouette by Tom Williams
Yep, that’s the ISS. And yep, that’s the thing that’s powering the ISS’s solar panels right behind it. Seems like overkill, tbh.
SH2-308: Dolphin Head Nebula by Xin Feng & Miao Gong
The Dolphin Head Nebula is a bubble of hydrogen gas about 60 light years across, created by stellar winds blowing at roughly 3.8 million mph. And this photo makes it look adorable.
Distorted Shadows of the Moon’s Surface Created by an Annular Eclipse by Ryan Imperio
Not the catchiest name, but what an image. It’s a composite of 32 photos of last year’s solar eclipse in the US. Imperio wanted to capture Bailey’s Beads (the shadows that show up when the sun glimmers through the craters on the moon) and he had to use an atomic clock in order to get the timing down to the necessary accuracy.
Queenstown Aurora by Larryn Rae
New Zealand is a lot further from the South Pole than the UK is from the North Pole – so auroas aren’t particularly common there. Especially not red ones. So to put it mildly, this is a pretty unique image.
Boo! By Thomas Kast
We can only imagine that Mr Kast took dozens, and dozens of images of this aurora before meticulously going through all of them, and happening up on this ghost.
Total Solar Eclipse by Gwenaël Blanck
This totality was photographed in Australia, and produced a corona that looked “like a flower”. With petals that could swallow up continents.
While you’re there, you can check out their other free galleries (which tend to focus more on regular ships rather than spaceships), head to the Cutty Sark, or see the Greenwich Meridian. But rest assured, all that will pale in comparison to the show itself…
…because these photographers shoot for the stars.
NOTE: The Astronomy Photographer Of The Year is showing from now until summer of 2025. It’s completely free, but you should book museum tickets, which you can do at the Maratime Museum website.
National Maritime Museum | Romney Road, SE10 9NF
While you’r there… you could grab a bite at one of Greenwich’s best restaurants.