
Trails of Moon, Venus & Jupiter over the Nepean River by muivincent
The image above was a runner-up in the Earth and Space category of the Royal Observatory’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest. If you live in London, this year’s winning photos are on display in a free exhibition at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, starting today. Everyone else should check out some additional winning photos after the jump. [via Kottke]

Earth and Space Winner: Star Trails Blue Mountains by edobosz

Earth and Space Highly-commended: MilkyWay by Nik Szymanek

Our Solar System Winner: Blue Sky Moon by michaeloconnell78

Deep Space Runner-up: M81_82 by clearviewh
7 Responses
how does one get their camera to take pictures like the one of the Milky Way? Its so clear so it cant have been a very long one, but its so bright. I would love to know so i could experiment too.
great shots!
you have to experiment to find the settings also! so start experimenting now.
You can get a motor that rotates at the same rate as the earth. You then match the angle to your latitude and set the camera up. The shutter stays open for a long time and follows the starts. On the shots with the stars and planets rotating around, this technique was not used.
That MilkyWay shot (Best I've ever seen, BTW) looks like R2D2 is hanging out in the bottom right corner. Quite fitting I must say :)
If that were true with the motor, how can the silhouette of the mountain and the observatory be clear and not blurred?
My understanding is really long exposure night shots are not possible with D-SLR's, film is still better. The noise shows up in long exposures of 30 or more mins no matter how low you set the iso.
there are so many things you can't buy in a store! one of these things are spezial cameras just for pros. …they are in a priceclass most of you better buy a new car..