Ryan Imperio won the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year award for his photograph Distorted Shadows of the Moon's Surface Created by an Annular Eclipse, which captures Baily’s beads during the 2023 solar eclipse.
This sequence shows Baily’s beads at third contact during the 2023 annular solar eclipse. The beads form when sunlight passes through valleys and craters along the Moon’s surface, breaking up the familiar ring of light. They are visible only as the Moon enters or leaves an eclipse and are difficult to photograph because they are so brief and require precise timing.
Photographed with a Nikon D810 camera, iOptron SkyGuider Pro mount and Sigma 150-600mm F5-6.3 DG OS HSM Contemporary lens at 600mm, f/8 and ISO 640, using multiple 1/1000-second exposures.
The image was displayed alongside the other category winners in the accompanying exhibition, which opened at the National Maritime Museum on Friday, September 13, 2024.
The Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year Award was won by Daniel Borsari for his photo NGC 1499, A Dusty California. Juror and artist Neal White commented that it “showed that the future of astronomical photography is being carried forward fearlessly and openly by a new generation.”
The other winning images are Aurora Borealis by Michael Steven Harris, photographed above Brighton seafront and beautifully capturing the aurora’s pink hues despite the area’s considerable light pollution; Tasman Gems by Tom Rae, a photo of the Milky Way from the night sky in the Southern Hemisphere, including the hydrogen clouds of the Gum Nebula and Parallel Lines Over the City by Ran Shen, who uses a simple yet powerful composition to show the trajectories of Venus and Jupiter across the skyline of Lujiazui, Shanghai.
In the Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation category, the jury awarded first place to Anatomy of a Habitable Planet by Sergio Díaz Ruiz. The image presents Earth as an apparently alien world that might be studied by a distant civilization.
Another jury favorite was SNR G107.5-5.2, Unexpected Discovery (The Nereides Nebula in Cassiopeia), a group entry by Marcel Drechsler, Bray Falls, Yann Sainty, Nicolas Martino and Richard Galli. The photograph captures a previously unknown giant supernova remnant (SNR) in the well-known constellation Cassiopeia—an exciting discovery represented among the winning images.
.webp)
The Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition is organized by Royal Observatory Greenwich, supported by Liberty Specialty Markets and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine. The 2024 competition saw more than 3,500 entries from 58 countries.
See also Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2023.
