This Year's Astronomy Photo Winners

Spectacular pictures that gained their shooters top honors during this year's Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest. On September. 8, the Royal Observatory Greenwich, proclaimed winners of this 3rd annual competition that drew over seven hundred entries. Awards went to competitors from four primary categories, Deep Space, Our Solar System, Earth and Space, and Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year, along with three special prizes.

Overall Winner, category Our Solar System,  Jupiter with Io and Ganymede,  Damian Peach.
 "Jupiter depicted along with two of its 64 known moons, Io and Ganymede, showing the surface of the gas giant streaked with colorful bands and dotted with huge oval storms; detail is also visible on the two moons."

Category Deep Space, Vela Supernova Remnant, Marco Lorenzi.
"The intricate structure of the aftermath of a supernova explosion — the violent death of a star many times more massive than the sun which took place over 10,000 years ago."

Category Earth and Space, Galactic Paradise, Tunç Tezel.
"The southern Milky Way viewed over the hilltops lined with palm trees just outside the village of Oneroa on the coast of Mangaia in the Cook Islands, July 11, 2010."

Category Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year, Lunar Eclipse and Occultation, Jathin Premjith.
"This summer’s lunar eclipse which took place on June 15, 2011. Here the moon is a red color because it is lit by sunlight which has been filtered through the Earth’s atmosphere."

Category People and Space, Stargazing, Jeffrey Sullivan.
"A self-portrait of the photographer silhouetted on a hilltop in the Sierra Nevada mountain range under the glittering band of the Milky Way, which contains hundreds of billions of stars in a disc-like structure."

Category Robotic Telescope, Shell Galaxies, Marco Lorenzi.
"Three distant galaxies located in the constellation of Pisces. In the upper left of this photograph, faint billowing shapes can be seen in the outer regions of an elliptical galaxy. Elliptical galaxies, which can contain up to a trillion stars, are typically smooth and shaped like a rugby ball."

Category Best Newcomer,  Zodiacal Light on the Farm,  Harley Grady.
"The glow of zodiacal light reaching into the sky above a barn in Comanche, Texas. Visible only in extremely dark skies, zodiacal light results from sunlight reflecting off dust particles in our solar system, capturing its faint signature is a great achievement for a novice astrophotographer. Two satellites are also visible to the left of the shot."

Milestones in Space Photography

First Full-View Photo of Earth

This famous "Blue Marble" shot represents the first photograph in which Earth is in full view. The picture was taken on December 7, 1972, as the Apollo 17 crew left Earth’s orbit for the moon. With the sun at their backs, the crew had a perfectly lit view of the blue planet.

First Photo of Earth From the Moon

This photo reveals the first view of Earth from the moon, taken by Lunar Orbiter 1 on August 23, 1966. Shot from a distance of about 236,000 miles (380,000 kilometers), this image shows half of Earth, from Istanbul to Cape Town and areas east, shrouded in night.

First Color Photo of Earthrise

When Apollo 8 was deployed in 1968, its sole photographic mission was to capture high-resolution images of the moon’s surface, but when the orbiting spacecraft emerged from a photo session on the far side of the moon, the crew snapped this, the most famous shot of the mission. Dubbed "Earthrise," this view of the Earth rising from the horizon of the moon helped humans realize the fragility of their home.

First Photo of Earth From Mars

The first Martian's-eye-view of Earth and its moon was captured on May 8, 2003, by a camera aboard NASA’s Mars Global Surveyor craft. Shot from Mars at a distance of 86 million miles (139 million kilometers) from Earth, the image reveals an illuminated slice of Earth’s Western Hemisphere—as well as a celestial perspective of the world in which we live.

First Panoramic Photo of Mars

Shortly after Viking 1 landed on Mars on July 20, 1976, its Camera 2 captured the first photograph ever taken of the planet’s surface. This 300-degree image shows Chryse Planitia, the flat, low-lying plain of Mars’s northern hemisphere, littered with mechanical parts from the lander and rocks that range from four to eight inches (10 to 20 centimeters) across.

First Photo of Mars's Surface

On July 20, 1976, spacecraft Viking 1 captured this, the first photograph ever taken of the surface of Mars. The photo shows one of three dust-covered footpads of the craft resting on Mars’s dry, rock-littered surface. Cameras strapped on either side of Viking 1’s lander helped scientists calculate distances on the surprisingly Earthlike surface of the red planet.

First Color Photo From Venus

In spite of surface temperatures of 900 degrees Fahrenheit (482 degrees Celsius) and atmospheric pressure 92 times that of sea level on Earth, Russian spacecraft Venera 13 captured the first color photos of the desertlike surface of Venus on March 1, 1982. This 170-degree panorama, which includes the zigzag lip of the lander at bottom, was created using blue, green, and red filters.

First Photo From Titan

The first photos taken of the surface of Saturn's moon Titan reveal a flat expanse strewn with grapefruit-size boulders, as shown in this composite view paired with a similar shot of the surface of Earth's moon. On January 14, 2005, the Cassini-Huygens mission, a joint U.S.-European venture, captured 1,100 photos during a two-hour descent through Titan’s murky atmosphere.

First Photos of Another Planet's Surface

From June to October 1975, Russian space probe Venera 9 became the first craft to orbit, land on, and photograph Venus. Venera 9 consisted of two main parts that separated in orbit, an orbiter and a lander. The 5,070-pound (2,300-kilogram) orbiter relayed communication and photographed the planet in ultraviolet light. The lander entered the Venusian atmosphere using a series of parachutes and employed a special panoramic photometer to produce 180-degree panoramic photos of the surface of the planet.