The Astrophotography Prize

[Andy01 (Andy)]

(Posted with Permission)

We are thrilled to announce that, following the immense success of the 2023 Astrophotography Prize categories, we are elevating the event to new heights, and we want to see your best Astrophotography images!

The 2024 Astrophotography Prize will now be its own dedicated event, taking place over two days on the 13th and 14th of September, 2024.

There's a $20,000 AUD prize pool up for grabs, including...

• QHY367C Colour camera (full frame) from Sidereal and CFF Telescopes
  
• Annual Subscription to Deep Sky West
  
• Stellarvue SVX102T Telescope from Stellarvue for the overall Astrophotographer of the Year!
  and more!

This exciting event will feature four live judging sessions followed by keynote presentations centred around our main categories:

• Deep Space
• Solar System
• Astro Landscape
• Remote Imaging

To ensure maximum accessibility for enthusiasts worldwide, the event will be live-streamed and recorded.

As the competition is centred around education, every entrant can receive written feedback on their entries.
Following the initial judging, the top 25 scoring images of each category will be re-judged live on YouTube by our international panel of truly amazing astrophotographers.
These debates and discussions bring the global astrophotography community together and will prove to be an invaluable resource for all.

Entry fees are applicable, (with a discount for bundles!), and competition entries close on September 1st.
So go to the website, read the rules, choose your categories and get your entries in!

If you missed out on the 2023 Astro Category judging you can check it out on the YouTube links below.
Discover why entering the 2024 Astrophotography Prize is a unique and not-to-be-missed experience!

2023 Deep Space Replay
2023 Astro Landscape Replay

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Wow! even bigger and better this year! Great stuff!

As part of the inaugural event team last year, I had so much fun and it was most rewarding to be involved in, so I would like to provide some personal and honest words of endorsement to help encourage people to consider entering this prize, from a previous judges perspective

Personal circumstances have prevented me being involved this year but holy cow that line up of judges this year is positively eyewatering . Entrants can rest assured their dedicated work, compiling, arranging and presenting their hard earned photons, will certainly not just disappear into the ether but will be assessed and critiqued by a large panel of the very best in the field, with feedback, can't complain about that!

For those interested in entering, I know first hand how much effort and thought goes into carefully assessing and providing feedback on your entries, both live in discussion and written and this is one of the aspects that makes this particular astroimaging contest unique in the world. You can actually find out why you received the result you did, what is good about the image, or if improvement could be had, what you could try differently, to lift or make your results stand out more, or give it that little extra kick etc.

So give it a shot if you have some work you particularly like, are particularly proud of, shows something new and cool, or would just like good honest feedback on. You will not only get feedback, if requested, but also recognition for the standard you have produced, a badge you can attach proudly on that image at your website if desired. Even more exciting, if you make the top 25 in your category, you will see your work displayed live on line and broadcast around the globe, and discussed by the "who's who" of International Astroimaging, I mean, WOW! how cool is that!...and who knows, you may even get lucky and win one of the excellent and totally astroimaging-relevant prizes!

Well done Andy and the Astrophotography Prize family, in providing such a unique platform for all imagers of the night sky, to have a crack at, be involved in and benefit from

Mike

[Crater101 (Warren)]

This is indeed good and exciting news. I particularly like the notion of the event being education based, as objective and constructive feedback on images from a quality field of judges would be beyond price for those of us still finding our way in the photographic side of the hobby. I look forward to seeing the entries!

[Andy01 (Andy)]

The 2024 Astrophotography Prize is open, and entries will close in just a few weeks!
Are you ready? Would you like some guidance from seasoned astrophotographers and judges on improving your entries?

Join us as a panel of experienced astrophotographers (drawn from the AstroPrize judge team) will lend their expertise to help you prepare your images for competition.

The Online session will be held this Tuesday, August 13th, 7:30pm - 9:00pm AEST.

Register HERE to attend

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing
information about joining the meeting.

Attendees can submit up to three images for critique. Photos remain anonymous, and we won't discuss scores, but we will discuss steps that might help improve your images.

When you upload your files, please name them with your first and last name, #1, #2, and #3.
Interest in these sessions is usually high, so to ensure as many astrophotographers as possible receive feedback, we plan on going through everyone's #1 image; then, hopefully, we'll work through #2s and #3s.

Critique submissions will close at noon on Tuesday, 13th August, OR when the critique fills up, so don't wait until the last second to submit!

Upload your images HERE. (Max 5mb each).

Attendance is free and open to everyone. Whether you submit images for critique or want to watch, listen, and learn, it will be a brilliant evening!

The session will NOT BE RECORDED to protect entrant privacy.

The Astrophotography Prize Team

[Andy01 (Andy)]

More Sponsors & Prizes have come on board, including

• Chroma (divine filters for astro-imaging)
• LTRimelapse
• Samyang & Move Shoot Move (thanks to Sidereal)
• Stellarvue
• Sidereal
• QSI
• Deep Sky West
• NEAIC
• Astrography

Over $20,000 AUD worth of goodies to be won.
The complete prize list is HERE.

Reminder: Entries close on Sept 1st, gotta be in it to win it!
ENTER HERE

[Andy01 (Andy)]

We are delighted to announce that Astrography is supporting the competition by providing printed AstroPanels in FineArt quality and size L (approximately 28x20 in / 70x50 cm)
for all Category Winners and Gold Award-winning images - including shipping!

LAST WEEK TO ENTER!
$20,000+ AUD Prize Pool to be won, including a Stellarvue SVX 102T telescope valued at $5000 AUD!

Enter HERE, but hurry - entries close September 1st.

[Tulloch (Andrew)]

Since you are interested in good, honest feedback, might I suggest that for next year's competition that the prize for the best Solar System image is not a camera that designed for DSO AP?

Quite frankly it's a bit insulting, as if the panel are saying "Yeah, we saw what you did with that cute photo of Jupiter, but here's a proper camera so you can do some real astrophotography."

[Andy01 (Andy)]

Originally Posted by Tulloch

Since you are interested in good, honest feedback, might I suggest that for next year's competition that the prize for the best Solar System image is not a camera that designed for DSO AP?

Well, regardless of your perceived value of the prizes, you would first have to enter to win them, and many planetary imagers have already done so.
You will then have the opportunity to have your images seen and, should they make it to the top 25, discussed by some of the world's leading planetary imagers.

Thanks for your feedback; we'll take it on board for next year.

[Andy01 (Andy)]

We welcome NEAIC as sponsors of the Astrophotography Prize.

The North-East Astro Imaging Conference is held annually in New York and is the premier in-person astrophotography conference in the United States.

Next year's conference in April features over 15 speakers already!

NEAIC 2025
April 7 - 8, 2025 (Monday & Tuesday)*
Tickets on sale in Nov 2024