Shimmering green aurora, a total eclipse and an exploding star: Winning images of Astronomy Photographer of the Year revealed
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From clouds dancing across the Milky Way to a stunning solar eclipse over Kenya, the annual competition showcasing the mysterious depths of our universe has revealed some incredible images.
West Midlands-based photographer James Woodend beat over a thousand amateur and professional photographers from around the world to win the title of Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2014.
As well as securing the £1,500 ($2,440) top prize, his image takes pride of place in the exhibition of winning photographs opening today at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
The winning image by James Woodend was of a green aurora pictured in Iceland's Vatnajokull National Park. The light reflected almost symetrically in Jokulsrlon Glacier lagoon. A complete lack of wind and currrent combine in this sheltered lagoon scene to create an arresting mirror effect giving the image a sensation of utter stillness
The judges were mesmerised by Woodend's shot portraying a vivid green aurora dancing across the Icelandic night sky and reflected symmetrically in the glacial Jökulsarlon lagoon of Vatnajökull National Park.
Competition judge and Royal Observatory Public Astronomer, Dr Marek Kukula said: 'I love the combination of whites and blue in the glacier with the chilly green of the aurora in this wonderfully icy picture.
'We've had some amazing aurora pictures in the competition over the last six years, but this is the first time a photo of the Northern Lights has actually won the Astronomy Photographer of the Year prize.
'We were all completely in awe of the colours and symmetry of James' shot.'
Highly commended images in the other categories and special prizes include a breathtaking view of the Earth taken from the brink of space, with the help of a high altitude balloon launched from Boulder, Colorado by Patrick Cullis.
The Horsehead Nebula is one of the most photographed objects in the night sky, but this image portrays it in a brand new light. The photographer draws the eye down to the creased and folded landscape of gas and dust at its base rather than focusing solely on the silhouette of the horsehead itself. Bill Snyder also includes the glowing cavity surrounding a bright star situated to the lower left of the horsehead
Rock formation in the Wairarapa district of New Zeland create a stark foreground and contrast to the dusty clouds dancing acorss the Milky Way. No light pollution and a clear, crisp night afford the photographer a fantastic opportunity for this superb image
IC 1340 is part of the Veil Nebula, a supernova remnant in constellation Cygnus at distance of about 1470 light years. The shock front formed by the material ejected from giant explosion, the super nova, can be seen in this image. The image was taken by J.P. Metsävainio in Finland
In 2012, O Chul Kwon succeeded in his goal of photographing a Venus- Lunar Occulation with this stunning time-lapse image over Mount Hamkaek in South Korea; an ambition he had held since seeing the phenomenon in 1989. The photograph shows us what happens when the moon and Venus appear the occupy the same position in the sky. Venus becomes temporarly hiddend by the moon, only to re-emerge in less than an hour
Another image shows the snaking swirls of super-heated gas on the boiling surface of the sun captured by Alexandra Hart.
Judges were also impressive by a figure silhouetted against the backdrop of a Kenyan savannah skyline and a rarely seen hybrid solar eclipse, taken by Eugen Kamenew from Germany.
A stark yet opulent portrayal of the rock formations of the Wairarapa district in New Zealand, contrasting with the dusty clouds dancing across the Milky Way photographed by Chris Murphy won Sir Patrick Moore prize for Best Newcomer.
The entrants in the Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year category impressed the judges again this year, with 15 year old twins Shishir and Shashank Dholakia from the US being crowned winners.
Their image showed the Horsehead Nebula standing out against the red glow of the background emission nebula, 1500 light-years from Earth.
'This year two things stood out for me while judging: the record-breaking number of 2,500 entries from a truly global community of astrophotographers, and the staggering quality of the images,' said BBC Sky at Night Magazine's Editor Chris Bramley, who is a judge for the competition, said of this year's contest.
'It was regularly hard to believe that many were taken from the surface of the Earth and not a space telescope orbiting our planet.'
Astronomy Photographer of the Year is run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich and BBC Sky at Night Magazine. Now in its sixth year, the competition received a record number of over 2500 entries from 51 countries.
The best of these exceptional photographs are showcased in a free exhibition in the Royal Observatory's Astronomy Centre which is open to the public from 18 September 2014 until 22 February 2015.
The sun's boiling surface curves away beneath us in this evocative shot that conveys the scale and violence of our star. The region of solar activity on the left could engulf the Earth several times over with room to spare. The sun's outer layers behave as a fluid, as alluded to in the image's title, and are constantly twisted
The zodiacal light seems to rise from the horizon like a pyramid with the brilliant point of Venus at its apex. Comprised of sunlight scattered and diffused by tiny grains of dust that drift between the planets, this pale feature marks out the plane of the solar system. The stillness of the skies contrasts with the transience of the scene below, with its shifting human figures reflected in the temporary waters of Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre
Resembling a giant eye looking across 700 light years of space, the Helix Nebula is one of the closest planetary nebula to Earth. The image reveals intricate details in the glowing gas that comprises the nebula including the tadpole-like 'cometary knots' that appear to stream from the inner edge of the gaseous ring
Poised on the brink of space, this astonishing shot shows the curvature of the Earth with the towering Rocky Mountains reduced to tiny wrinkles on the surface below. Taken with the aid of a high altitude balloon, launched from Boulder, Colorado, the photographer captures the breath-taking view of the Earth. The tiny dot of the moon pictured in the distance highlights the vast expanse between our planet and its nearest cosmic neighbour
The image on the left was taken in Australia near the town of Bungendore. It captures the Capital Wind Farm on the shore of Lake George. On the right is view of one of nature's greatest spectacles, a total solar eclipse, taken from an airplane above Turkana Kenya
This image is centred on NGC 1999, an area situated below Orion's Belt and oft overlooked due to its proximity to a number of popular targets in one of the richest constellations of the sky. The photograph serves to remind us that there is often much more happening in our galaxy than meets the eye and that the space between the stars is rarely empty. The scatter of the bright blue stars illuminates the billowing dust and gas clouds dancing across the image
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