The Royal Observatory’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2024—arguably the biggest prize for astrophotographers—has published 31 images shortlisted for the award.
The competition, run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich, London, and sponsored by Liberty Specialty Markets in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine, is in its 16th year.
This year, a stunning 3,500 entries were submitted from amateur and professional photographers in 58 countries.
Shortlisted images include supernova remnants, the aurora borealis in the shape of a dragon and our Milky Way galaxy over the Isaac Newton Telescope, Spain. Another photo shows the Milky Way behind the spectacle of December's spectacular Geminid meteor shower.
Judged by experts from the worlds of art and astronomy, the winners of the competition’s nine categories, two special prizes and the overall winner will be announced on Thursday, September 12. The winning images will be displayed in an exhibition at the National Maritime Museum from Saturday, September 14. The overall winner will receive $12,600.
Here are all the shortlisted images across all categories:
Astronomy Photographer Of The Year: Overall Winner
Landscape and cityscape images of twilight and the night sky featuring the Milky Way, star trails, meteor showers, comets, conjunctions, constellation rises, halos and noctilucent clouds alongside elements of earthly scenery.
Aurorae
Photographs featuring auroral activity (these two images are in addition to main image, above).
People And Space
Photographs of the night sky, including people or a human-interest element.
Our Sun
Solar images, including transits and solar eclipses.
Our Moon
Lunar images, including occultation of planets and lunar eclipses and transits.
Planets, Comets And Asteroids
Everything else in our solar system, including planets and their satellites, comets, asteroids and other forms of zodiacal debris.
Stars And Nebulae
Deep-space objects within the Milky Way galaxy, including stars, star clusters, supernova remnants, nebulae and other galactic phenomena.
Galaxies
Deep-space objects beyond the Milky Way galaxy, including galaxies, galaxy clusters and stellar associations.
Young Astronomy Photographer Of The Year
Pictures taken by budding astronomers under 16.
The Sir Patrick Moore Prize For Best Newcomer
Photos taken by people who have taken up the hobby in the last year and have not entered an image into the competition before. The judges will give special consideration to those using simple and inexpensive start-out kits.
The Annie Maunder Prize For Image Innovation
For images the entrants process using pre-existing open-source data.
The winning images will be displayed in an exhibition at the National Maritime Museum alongside exceptional shortlisted images.
One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts.
Read our community guidelines .
Forbes Community Guidelines
Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.
In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's Terms of Service. We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.
Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:
False or intentionally out-of-context or misleading information
Spam
Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kind
Attacks on the identity of other commenters or the article's author