[HN Gopher] Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2025 shortlist
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Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2025 shortlist
Author : speckx
Score : 144 points
Date : 2025-08-08 14:29 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.rmg.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.rmg.co.uk)
| aredox wrote:
| I can't look at this without asking myself "how many of these are
| completely generated"?
|
| Thanks for destroying trust, AI researchers and companies. On top
| of everything else.
| olddustytrail wrote:
| I'm not aware of any photograph of this sort that would fool an
| astronomer. The times and dates wouldn't work if it was faked.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| They are highly processed and often stacked but I see nothing
| there that looks fake.
| ethan_smith wrote:
| The competition requires submission of raw files and detailed
| processing information, making it one of the more rigorous
| contests for verifying authentic astrophotography.
| pploug wrote:
| Oh its not coldplay concert photos
| hodgehog11 wrote:
| This is the kind of discovery that I love to see on HN.
| Regardless of who wins the competition, we all win by getting to
| see all of the entries.
|
| Absolutely gorgeous shots. Made my day.
| creativenolo wrote:
| It's also lovely to see the exhibition IRL when it comes, if
| you're lucky enough.
|
| When I saw it, there were narratives about the people behind
| the shots which made it extra special.
| ucarion wrote:
| > Into the Past by Jim Hildreth
|
| The area in this photo -- the Caineville Mesa, Factory Butte,
| "Long Dong Silver" (I'm not aware of a more polite name) -- is
| some of the strangest land in America. It really is that lunar
| blue gray. The Temples of the Sun and Moon (enormous natural
| sandcastles) are also nearby, and are similarly eerie in the
| evening.
|
| The closest I've ever felt to being in space. Recommend!
| dfee wrote:
| Agree. Found his site, but that shot's not listed:
| https://www.hildreth-photographer.com/portfolio.html?folio=F...
| roldie wrote:
| Wow, these are gorgeous. Thanks for sharing!
| S0y wrote:
| The amount of compression that was applied to these photo is
| downright criminal.
| dylan604 wrote:
| You are free to visit the actual exhibition to see the images
| without compression.
|
| https://www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/astronomy-photographer-year/e...
| xd1936 wrote:
| Is there any place for me to pay to download one of these for
| personal use as a desktop wallpaper?
| finnjohnsen2 wrote:
| Norwegian here. Not a young one. Ive seen my share of the
| northern lights and Ive also seen a lot of photos of it. The
| photos are attractive, but they are never like seen by the
| photographer with the naked eye.
|
| I blame that dark/night photography is an impossible task. The
| tricks like long exposure, ISO boost and noise cleanup,
| saturation, hdr or whatever you throw at it, just wont be like
| your eyes. Photographers gets carried away in post and boost too
| much, and I understand why.
|
| Northern lights - are awesome. I encourage you to see it if you
| havent. Go this winter! And take photos and you'll know what I
| meen. The colors wont pop like these popular photos, but standing
| outside on a freezing winter night holding back your frost breath
| from blocking the view of the green lights moving like firely
| beams of across the sky. Hopefully you're somewhere quiet with no
| light pollution. There is nothing like it - watching the
| reflections of the armor of the valkyrene as they march on valhal
| dylan604 wrote:
| I'm all for managing people's expectations, but I'm just not
| agreeing with your conclusion. Human vision is only capable of
| registering such a small piece of the spectrum that is there.
| Just because human eyeballs cannot perceive the information
| does not mean it is not there. This is true of pretty much any
| astronomy photographs, and that is why people do it. When you
| look at the milky way, you don't see all of the colors with
| your naked eye. It doesn't mean they are not there though.
| Looking at Pleiades, you just see a group of stars, but long
| exposures reveal all of the incredible nebulosity around them.
| Looking at the Andromeda galaxy with the naked eye is meh at
| best, and only truly becomes awe inspiring with long exposure
| to start to reveal the detail in the spiral arms. Looking at
| any deep sky object even with a telescope with naked eye is
| just never going to allow us to see what is truly there.
|
| Boosting colors/saturation that is already there is no
| different from what most people do with images on their phones.
| I also have no issues when people use a SII or H-alpha filters
| and give them a false color.
| jamestimmins wrote:
| I like this interpretation, because my experience seeing the
| northern lights was similar to OC's. I had such high
| expectations from photos, and then I saw them and was
| somewhat underwhelmed. My friends are photographers and they
| took vibrant photos, but since then it has felt 'fake'
| somehow.
|
| But your framing it as what is actually going on, just with
| better sensors than our eyes have, makes me appreciate the
| art more.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I caught them when hitch-hiking from Alaska down to the
| lower-48 when I was 20 or so. I was also partly sleep deprived
| but the experience has haunted my dreams since.
|
| Frequently after I would have dreams where wild displays of
| light (sometimes nebulae) covering the entire night sky,
| hanging over me -- making me feel so small compared to the
| universe.
|
| I've told my daughters to travel where they have to so that
| they see them at least once in their lifetime. And I mean the
| full on blazing in the night sky: crossfading, the colors....
|
| I think I might rank them higher than seeing a full eclipse.
| srean wrote:
| Shanghai blood moon reminded me of Blade Runner. Who knew that a
| 1982 imagination of LA Chinatown would look so similar to
| Shanghai in fool Moon.
|
| I know it's partly because of the color pallette, but still
| temp0826 wrote:
| The one of M33 (Triangulum Galaxy) really blew me away, so many
| nebulae!
| Noumenon72 wrote:
| > Gateway to the Galaxy by Yujie Zhang
|
| Are the "geometric buildings" real or just something she put up
| for the picture?
| dcre wrote:
| I pasted the image into ChatGPT and while I can't find the
| place described on Google Maps, the picture is clearly of the
| same place. They're more of a sculpture than a set of
| buildings.
|
| https://subsites.chinadaily.com.cn/ezhejiang/lishui/2025-01/...
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