Gold standard picture

"Lots of astro photographers at this level like to travel a lot, go to certain places to get the best photos, and if they can't do that, as was the case during the pandemic, they may be using robotic scopes in another country, which is what these two did," Bloomer explains, pointing out that artistic judgment is still needed to come up with such a striking image.

"You still have to collect the data and process it to make aesthetic choices. The Running Chicken Nebula had a lovely balance of colors, and a lot of the fine detail is very clear. Their image lets an astronomer see what's going on, and it's also very beautiful in its composition. So there wasn't much debate, we put it through to the shortlist very quickly.

"Choosing winners takes a long time, and we make sure we have a variety of judges, from all kinds of backgrounds, so we get a broad range of opinions and look very carefully.

"We are very careful when shortlisting. We discuss and disagree, and we have to convince one another of a picture's merits, so it can take a long time. But this was a gold standard picture.

"If it was taken by someone much older and more experienced, it would still be a fantastic image. The fact it's someone younger is deeply impressive, so it scored highly across the board."

Bloomer says the variety of subjects chosen for entries, and the multiplicity of ways they could be presented, made for fascinating viewing for the judges.

"Something like the Orion nebula is very popular for beginner photographers because it's bright, it's colorful, and there's a lot going on, and then your choice of equipment and filter mean you can get all sorts of different looks from the same kit," he says.

"As well as pictures of permanent features, there are lots of things that are transient or seasonal, like the glimpse of a comet passing, an eclipse, or planetary conjunction — we're very fortunate that there is so much material. Winner in 2022 was the trail of a comet that was destroyed by its close passage to the sun, so that was the only year that those images could be captured.

"One of the things about the entries from China, which did so well, was how different they all were. Something like the Pleiades constellation is easy to point out when people are doing naked-eye stargazing, but the image and detail of its cloud structures that were captured in the image Blue Spirit Drifting in the Clouds is amazing."