The month of September always means the announcement of the winners of Insight Investments Astronomy Photographer of the Year, an annual competition showcasing the world’s greatest space photography. This is the competition’s 12 year, with over 5000 entries being submitted from 6 continents.
This year of course things were a little different, the usual awards ceremony at the Royal Observatory Greenwich and latterly the National Maritime Museum being replaced by a virtual event.
The ceremony is normally a great opportunity to catch up with old astrophotography friends as well as connect with other like minded people from across the globe and I’ve been lucky enough to attend four times, this year would have been the fifth through the efforts of my daughter Thea. Sadly this was not to be, due of course to Covid-19, but Royal Museums Greenwich did a fantastic job presenting the awards remotely Jon Culshaw and Emily Drabek-Maunder hosting the ceremony which can be seen here and I’m sure you’ll agree the very best was made of the terrible situation we all find ourselves in.
Thea’s image ‘Detached Prominence’ was awarded runner-up in Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year, which made her very happy and her parents very proud!
The winning images are always widely reported in the world’s press, a simple search will return lots of results but here are a few links to coverage by some of the UK’s national newspapers and broadcasters, The Guardian , The BBC , London Evening Standard, Google News