Australians scoop the pool in the International "Astronomy Photographer of the Year"!

[iceman]

The results of the 2009 International Year of Astronomy, “Astronomy Photographer of the Year” competition are in!.... and Australian imagers have featured very well in the final results!

Last night at a gala ceremony in London at the Royal Observatory Greenwich no less than five Aussies received awards for their spectacular Astronomical photography!

Congratulations to Martin Pugh who was crowned Astronomy Photographer of the Year last night in London.

Martins beautiful image of the Horsehead Nebula was last night judged winner of the Deep Space category and the Overall Winner in this most prestigious contest

Martin also received a highly commended award in this category for his outstanding image of Corona Australis.

Michael Sidonio (strongmanmike) proudly hoisted the Aussie flag too in the Deep Space category, being awarded a Highly Commended for his amazing Ultra Deep Centaurus A image

Ted Dobosz (Star Catcher) from the Blue mountanis won the Earth and Space category for his wonderful SCP star trails image

Vincent Miu (cookie8) was awarded a highly commended in the Earth and Space category for his lovely image of Venus, Jupiter and moon over the Napean River.

** Although not an Australian, another notable award winner and also an IceInSpace member, was Tom Davis whose magnificent image of the Eta Carinae received a highly commended award in the Deep Space category

About the Competition

This prestigious world wide competition was hosted by the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London, in conjunction with The “Sky at Night” magazine and “Flickr” image posting web site.

The competition was open from January to July this year and over 1500 astronomical images, taken by imagers form all over the world, were displayed on the Flicker web site setup for the event.

There were four categories:

1) Deep Space
2) Earth & Space
3) Our Solar System
4) Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year

Five images were chosen as finalists in each category with a category winner, runner-up and three highly commended awards being given in each category plus the overall winner.

** To have images from 4 Aussie astrophotographers chosen as finalists from this field is simply amazing and testament to the wealth of imaging talent we have down under.

Entries were assessed by a judging panel made up of nine eminent amateur and professional astronomers, writers and publishers including Sir Patrick Moore and renowned Solar System photographer Damien Peach.

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/astronomy-photographer-of-the-year/judges/

See all the results and winning images here:

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/astronomy-photographer-of-the-year/winners/

All of the awarded images will be on exhibition at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in London from 10 Sept 2009 until 10 January 2010, so if you are in that neck of the woods…pop in for a look! :)


Congrats to all winners and honourable mentions!

[h0ughy]

Congratulations Guys and well done

[jjjnettie]

Congratulations Everyone!:D
Well deserved too.

[dugnsuz]

Fantastic result - well done.
Doug

[Lester]

Good on ya chaps. Well deserved.

[Omaroo]

Congratulations fellas! :) :thumbsup: Well done!

The 2009 Compendium might just be featuring a couple of these.... :whistle:

[acropolite]

Congratulations guys, good to see Australian talent recognised.:thumbsup:

[spacezebra]

Yeah! Congrats guys - well done.

Cheers Petra d.

[TheDecepticon]

Congrats to all, go Aussies!!:party2::cool:

[lacad01]

Great news, congratulations to all the recipients :2thumbs::clap::clap:

[StephenM]

Congratulations guys! Great stuff.

Cheers,
Stephen

[Liz]

Wow ... that is excellent!!
Congrats to Martin - well done, and Michael and Vincent, and all :sunny::party2:

[renormalised]

Brilliant job, guys. Well done:thumbsup::thumbsup::D:D

[DavidU]

Awesome just Awesome !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[bloodhound31]

Well of COURSE we won...we are Australians! :thumbsup: We are the best at just about everything aren't we?:whistle:

Baz.

[erick]

BUT can we afford them now :D


Fantastic work guys! Well done on excellent imaging results. :2thumbs::clap:


Lovely images. The aurora by Karl Johnston of Canada is breathtaking!

And check the "No Dogs" photo! :lol:

[Quark]

Congratulations on receiving these awards, such international recognition carries great kudos for our home grown amateur community.

Well done
Cheers
Trevor

[Martin Pugh]

Hello everyone....and what with the stamp release as well. What can I say!!

Thanks very much for your posts, it is very much appreciated and of course, hats off to the other Aussies who appear to have done so well in this competition.

Not forgetting Tom Davis also. In fact, I am very surprised where his image was finally placed, I thought it was a competition winner.

It does feel great though.

cheers
Martin

[wavelandscott]

Congratulations to all on a "stellar" performance.

Well Done!

[TrevorW]

Australia we have talent

well done

[cookie8]

Thanks everyone for your posts. Woke up early to check the result & I am still over the moon!! Finishing as runner-up is something I would have never dream of.
This year the IYA has been a memorable year for me after having my ISS/Shuttle image published in March.
Huge applause to Martin,Ted and Mike for their well deserved awards.

Forget about the Ashes. We Aussies are the best!!
Cheers

[FredSnerd]

What spectacular pics. You gotta be proud of those

[Omaroo]

I'll only put one JPG page preview from the compendium up, but I think that Vincent certainly deserves it.

Well done cookie8!

[Darth Wader]

Congrats guys :thumbsup: some awesome images there!

[Tom Davis]

Thanks Martin. I am really pleased that my image was even considered! To be right there with you, Mike and Ed is a honor.

Tom

[Ric]

What a collection of wonderful images.

Congratulations to all the winners.

[DavidU]

We had better make Tom Davis an Aussie ASAP

[Octane]

Congratulations, gentlemen. All of you worthy winners. :)

Regards,
Humayun

[Star Catcher]

Thanks all for the congratulatory posts. It certainly was an unexpected outcome given the many great entries.

Kudos to my fellow aussies Martin, Vincent and Mike. As always in such competitions, different things strike a chord with different judges. I encourage everyone who has fun taking astro images to throw their hat in the ring next time. You never know?

Ted

[strongmanmike]

Nicely said Ted :)

I would also like to thank you all for the congratulations, without the forum of IIS it would have been much more difficult to reach such levels of recognition for our work, this stage is great for maitaining enthusiasm for what we do and for sharing it, so thanks to everyone on here :hi:

Mike

[multiweb]

Good on you Martin :thumbsup: and every body else.

[Paul Haese]

Congratulations to all the winners. Well worthy winners.

[NickHowes]

I was there last night, and you guys rock... Superb night and great to see so many fantastic images. Well done all for some terrific work..

[iceman]

Congratulations on your own winning effort, Nick! Beautiful work indeed.

[Virgs]

Excellent results well done all

[mac]

Well done, Aussie neighbours!

[Robh]

Great work guys!
Congrats to Ted Dobosz.

Regards, Rob

[Jen]

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: nice work guys i love your work well done ;)
I purchased a copy of Martin's horsehead pic its so beautiful (well 2 actually i got a color one and a black and white one) hehe
I might have to send it back to get it signed :rofl::rofl:

[AlexN]

Congrats again to everyone! You must feel on top of the world right about now..

Jen - I too bought Martin Pugh's Horse head image and it hangs proudly on the wall of my computer room, right above the screen I use to process my images as a constant reminder of what I one day hope to be able to achieve.. I have been very happy to have that image on my wall, more-so now that Martin has had some recognition for this master piece..

Mike - A3 prints available of your Cent A image? Yet another image I can safely say I hope to one day be capable of achieving...

[Peter Ward]

Many Aussies, Brits and Americans didn't enter as the rules excluded
images that had already been published elsewhere.

But to point out the obvious, Martin's winning image was published in AS&T.

Please don't get me wrong, there are no sour grapes
as Martin (who is a Brit) is an excellent imager and deserves
kudos....and a well done....but gee, many others might have entered
otherwise.

[jjjnettie]

:lol: But being Australians, if there's reflected glory to be had, we'll adopt anyone and call them Aussies.
eg. Russell Crowe, The Bee Gees, Split Enz, Mel Gibson etc etc
:thumbsup:

[Martin Pugh]

Not that I need to explain myself, because there is no need to.

Firstly though, I am Australian, and exchanged a number of emails with the ROG (at their request) so that they could get the press release correct, and the website post still managed to get it wrong. I also made it clear where the images were taken.

Peter, for the benefit of the group, please list the edition of Australian Sky and Telescope magazine where the winning image was published.

I would also suggest that the competition rule stating: "Photos that have already been widely published or that have won a prize in a major competition (one receiving more than 500 photos) are not eligible" is open to interpretation.

I also seriously doubt that every image taken by every Brit, Aussie or American astrophotographer has been widely published thereby excluding them from the competition.

Martin

[DavidU]

AS&T print run is probably quite small in the big picture so Martins pic may not be "widely published"
just a thought

[Peter Ward]

Hello Martin, no you don't & I apologise, I was unaware you taken up Oz citizenship & it was Mike's Cent -A image that was in AS&T...but I could have sworn I have seen your HH in print recently....perhaps I am mistaken?

[Martin Pugh]

Yes Peter, I was an Australian citizen within 3 months of emigrating in Oct 04 because of my employment with the Australian military.

You certainly are mistaken about HH. The only place it has been published was right here in this forum, and was subsequently purchased by Alex (1 copy) and Jen (2 copies). In Flickr, I also posted my NB image of the Running Chicken nebula which clinched the David Malin award in 2008 as you well know. I did not however enter that image because in my mind, it had won 'a prize in a major competition'.

Regardless though, I would most certainly concur with David's post below. Does publication in AS&T brand that image as 'widely published'?


Martin

[RB]

Congratulations everyone.

Wonderful work all-round !!

:)

[Peter Ward]

That was my interpretation, I think the print run is 12,000 issues & it's widely available on news-stands.

In any event, Kudos to you Martin, it is a splendid image.

[strongmanmike]

Peter, I have known you for a while now and you are an inteligent man (I think?) but I must say you say some funny things sometimes.

Fancy making that your first post on this thread :shrug:

Yes I am sure you will make some glib reply but quite frankly if trying to quibble over the rules and making demeaning comments is the only thoughts you have on this how about you just keep them to yourself? - fairdinkum :zzz:

If 9 judges from a broad cross section of the astronomical world haven't seen an image before, how tha hell can it be deamed to have been widely published??

Shame you couldn't have just been a gentleman and simply congratulated Martin instead of muddying the waters around the validity of the contest. You chastised an individual on the Sydney Observatory forum for doing exactly this after the 2006 David Malin awards...remember? :rolleyes:

Mike

[Peter Ward]

Did not your entry get a feature page in AS&T? So you're me kidding about "widely published" right? Dunno whether you've noticed Mike, but the rest of the world thinks Oz is near the spot on the edge of the map that says "Here be Dragons..."

I see a lot of published material in my travels, and could have sworn Martins excellent image was in a magazine elsewhere...I should have double checked, it turned out to be a *very* stupid thing to say, and a sincere apology was extended.

The fact that Martin is a Brit who took up citizenship mattered not to me, other than for the record, I thought a Brit had won, not an Aussie. I got it wrong again. Martin has all bases covered! :)

But as for the rules.....yes, I guess they were open to interpretation.

Sydney Obs blog? Had to think about that.... Some suggested the Malin Awards were rigged...yes I did object!

Are you suggesting I'm suggesting RGO comp was rigged?! I think not!

My position is simply this... I read the rules and chose not to enter, as my best images had been published. A lot of other imagers thought the same as me.

You thought differently, chose to enter and did well..... so good for you too.

[h0ughy]

righto guys:hi: - photon pistols and ion drives at 20 paces with no Ha shields......come on!!!!;)

I couldn't care less who was published where, but i will say that the images I saw were terrific, and if the comp is on again next year - there will be more Aussies entering i suspect:thumbsup:, whether we fair OK :shrug:is up to the judges and our luck on the night of capturing the photons and processing the results.:)

To say that we are an ink blot on the map, so be it:rofl:, but its a pretty darn good blot. :D


So I can see Mike holding the scope:help:, with Peter on the camera :P and Martin capturing the photons:thumbsup: - you guys can call it MiPeTin Capturing Inc........:lol:

[NickHowes]

wow...

As a Brit, who almost emigrated a few years back to Oz (my wife and I love your country so much...but family issues had to come first), I was just immensely proud and honoured to even be in the same shortlist as some of the amazing images at the event. Martin's image is being debated all over the world, my take on it, having seen it first hand in print, and 8ft high on the roof of the planetarium at the RGO on the award night, is that it;s a staggering piece of work, which shows immense technical skill and great attention to detail.

I have been first hand at Mt Palomar in the control room of the Hale scope, and had images to work on taken with that monster. Martin's image, for an amateur setup (okay so a v good one!) is truly as good as what most pro observatories could have taken up to only a decade or so ago..

I hope some of you managed to come over to our shores (bring your weather with you please!), to see it all first hand, and all I can say again is huge congratulations to Martin and all the other Aussies, Brits, Americans etc, who managed to get to the final/images published.

I write for a UK Astronomy Magazine, and my pics are published in mags all the time, as are a huge proportion of the 500 images submitted...frankly I don't care...I talked to the judges (who blind reviewed each image with no names known), 6 of whom I know personally, and the only things I suggested for next year is to completely forbid any images taken with robotic pro scopes (I have access to FT and a few others, and no way would I submit images from them, it's not fair), and also no way allow any submissions of doctored Hubble data (it was done!)

Anyway... well done Martin et al...keep em coming, keep inspiring me and everyone else...and rol on 2010

[DavidU]

Well put Nick. Are you serious about someone fiddling with Hubble data?

[NickHowes]

Yup...two images were submitted which were Hubble data..

Oh....and this made me laugh

http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/news/British_photographer_scoops_astrono my_title_news_289035.html

[strongmanmike]

:lol: Looks like the Pom's want you back as one of their own Martin :P

[strongmanmike]

If it were you and I Dave we would just be EatMePie :P

Mike

[Martin Pugh]

Hello Chris and many thanks for that write up and interesting post.

Blimey, if I only had some sort of inkling I would have done everything to get out of my military duties here (or rather at the time of the announcements) and flew to London. I just cant imagine what the image would have looked like, 8ft tall, projected onto the roof of the planetarium.

But what was it that made you laugh about that article you linked to?

I only know that I exchanged multiple emails with the RGO team because they wanted to be clear on where I came from, and what my nationality was (which I firmly declared as Australian). They wanted this right for the press release, yet every web article I have read has me down as British (which is still part true as I have dual-citizenship, but for the purpose of this competition, I was firmly Australian).

thanks for the post.

cheers
Martin

[avandonk]

Congratulations to all that participated. I always stay away from competitions as it can lead to 'inbred' opinions of what is a very good image.

It is obvious to me that all the top images were very good.

I would hate to be a judge given the quality they have to winnow.

Bert

[strongmanmike]

The title of the article:

"British photographer scoops astronomy title"

Taken from Australia by an Australian now, ah huh! but hey kobber you are still British, what

"Who do you think you are kidding Mr Hitler, when you think old England's done..."

:rofl:

[gregbradley]

Congrats to all the winners. That's a great result.

Did you go to London as well Mike?

Greg.

[Bassnut]

I sympathise with you Peter, it would really sh*t me too, having thought you were doing the right thing and not entering a published image. But not so publically perhaps :P. Clearly, "widely published" should be better defined.

Anyway, congrats to the winners.

[strongmanmike]

No but I thought about it, had the time off approved by my boss though, just in case :P was a good excuse to go to England but in the end we decided we didn't have enough notice and the timing was bad so just waited up to hear the results, felt like I was watching the Ashes :lol:

Mike

[Grus]

Dont know if anyone else saw this last week, noticed Martins pic of m31 on the front page, this i think is alittle more awesome :eyepop:
Well done Martin

From Martins site

I was absolutely delighted to have been named the Astronomy Photographer of the Year (http://www.nmm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/astronomy-photographer-of-the-year/winners/deep-space/) last night (9 September) in a ceremony at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich in the UK.
The competition received 540 entries from 25 countries and were judged by a panel of 9 including Sir Patrick Moore. So I am very pleased with the result.
My image of the famous Horsehead Nebula (http://www.martinpughastrophotography.id.a u/Nebulae/IC434.htm) won both the deep-sky category and the overall competition.
Competition judge and BBC Sky at Night presenter, Chris Lintott said, ‘‘I think this is the perfect deep-sky image; perfectly composed, it grabs your attention straight away.The detail is absolutely stunning, whether it’s the fine structure in the curtain behind the horse or the subtle details on the edge of the dark nebula itself’.

My 5 panel mosaic (http://www.martinpughastrophotography.id.a u/Nebulae/NGC6726.htm)of a region of space in the constellation of Corona Australis came in third

My congratulations also extend to the other winners. You can read about the competition and see all the results here. (http://www.nmm.ac.uk/visit/exhibitions/astronomy-photographer-of-the-year/winners/)

http://www.martinpughastrophotography.id.a u/

[iceman]

Hi Gavin
I merged your thread with the other one discussing the awards.

[Grus]

Thanks, even after doing a search prior to posting, I still missed it :(