The MAS Astro Photo Competition will run every year. The winners (and runner up) images will be posed here.
The Competition for 2022 is now closed, winners are as below. The 2023 Competition is now open. Entries for the 2023 Competition close midnight on Friday 3rd November 2023. Winners will be announced at the December 2023 meeting. Rules :-
The Competition is open to members only, for images taken on their own equipment during the current competition year. All photos must feature an extra-terrestrial subject :-) Further details available on joining (and in the Members (login) section).
Maidenhead Astronomical Society photo competition 2023
Categories :- 1. Moon 2. Sun 3. Planets / Solar System (including Comets, Asteroids, Meteors etc) 4. Deep Sky 5. 'Art image' (any object with sky or astral object in view. This must be a single frame image and not a composite or edited image)
The winner in each category will be short-listed for the Susan Flinders Memorial Award as 'Overall Winner' to be voted on by the members present at the Quiz Night meeting in December 2023 and awarded during that meeting.
Judging The Photographic Competition 2022 will be judged by an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society.
Rules 1) The image must have been taken by a full member of MAS 2) Each image should be given a description (name, date, where it was taken and what equipment was used e.g. digital camera, scope, mobile phone etc.) in the body of the email (see 4) 3) Images must have been taken between 6th November 2022 and 3rd November 2023 4) The image should be submitted as a jpeg or PNG no larger than 5 MB to photo2023@maidenhead-astro.net. Entries will not be accepted in any other medium or to any other email address. At a minimum please name the file as category, image title and your name (for example '1-Lunar-eclipse-Andy-N-Other.jpg') NOTE - the spam filters only accept emails from a members registered eMail address. To update your eMail address, Contact the Chair or WebAdmin 5) A maximum of 3 images per category per member 6) The images remain the property/copyright of the entrant 7) The winning images will be posted to the MAS website (at reduced resolution). The WebAdmin reserves the right to enhance contrast, brightness and re-crop to enhance appearance and fit the format of the web page. He will (only) add a watermark on request.
All rights reserved, all photos Copyright individual members of MAS
(+) 3 Dec 2022 2022 Photo Competition Winners - (all categories)
(+) 3 Dec 2021 2021 Photo Competition Winners - (all categories)
(+) 7 Jun 2019 2019 Photo Competition Winners - (all categories)
(+) 1 Jun 2018 2018 Photo Competition Winners - (all categories)
(+) 2 Jun 2017 2017 Photo Competition Winners - (all categories)
(-) 3 Jun 2016 2016 Photo Competition Winners - (all categories)
Winner Sun Category, Transit of Mercury by Tim H.
Taken on 9th May 2016 observed the Transit from the Yorkshire Moors (whilst Tim was on holiday !). Tim says "Whilst the clouds were not too much of an issue, there was a lot of atmospheric turbulence. I took a series of 3 frame bursts in large jpeg at 30 minute intervals during the transit, hoping to catch the Sun in calm air. I had one good shot in most sequences, except when the Sun was lower down. This frame was one of the best shots."
Canon 70D with 70-300 zoom lens + Aluminised Mylar film filter, F5.6 at F11 1/800s ISO 100.
Runner up, Sun Category, by Robin O.
Taken on 17th March at Clares Court School using the Society Lunt Solarscope. Robin says "I managed to grab a few quick photos of the Sun through the Society Solarscope through broken clouds, during our Outreach activities at Clares Court. This one shows up the surface structure rather well and I even caught some solar prominences."
(Ed. The photo has been contrast enhanced for web display, however to see the surface structure you will have to click on the image and view it full size)
Lunt Solarscope with Canon 60Da prime focus adaptor, F5.6 at F11 1/600s ISO 1600.
Winner, Moon Category, Tony T.
Taken on 20 Jan 2016.
Nikon D5300 15-600mm Tamron lens
Runner up, Moon Category, Total Lunar Eclipse by Colin A.
Taken on 28th Sept 2015. Colin says "To see the Eclipse I had to set up in my front garden, so I had street and house lights to contend with. I started imaging at approximately 01:30am and finished around 05:45am. I took about 130 images and this, during Totality, shows the 'Blood Moon' effect really well."
Nikon D5100 at prime focus on an 8 inch Skywatcher reflector. Various ISO's (100 to 800 for totality) with various shutter speeds (1/500s to about 2s).
Winner, Planets category, Callisto shadow on Jupiter by Tim H.
Taken on March 17th, Tim says "When I first saw the daek spot in the eyepiece I thought it was an impact as it's quite unusual to see Callisto as well as it's shadow across the North Polar Region. Imaging at 30fps, this is a stack of the best 730 frames"
(Ed. Brightness of Callisto has been boosted for the web)
DFK21 on 30cm F/4 Newtonian reflector on EQ6 mount using (6mm) eyepiece projection.
Winner, Deep Sky category, Jones-Emberson 1, popularly known as the 'Headphones Nebula', by Adrian J.
Taken between Dec 15 - Jan 16. Adrian says "This planetary nebula is in the constellation of Lynx, at a distance of about 1600 light-years. It is extremely faint and proved difficult to image, requiring a lot of exposure. Total exposure time was 52 hours, captured over several nights in December 2015 and January this year."
(Ed - shown here is the central crop of a wide-field view).
Skywatcher MN190 Maksutov-Newtonian, QSI 583wsg camera with Astrodon filters (R/G/B, Ha, OIII)
Winner, National and International Category, Orion by Robin O.
Taken on 21st Feb. over Obergurgl, Austria.
Hand held, 10-18mm wide angle lens, 10s at f4.5 ISO 800
Runner up, National and International Category, Moon over New Forest by Jo K.
Taken Sept 2015
Lumix basic cameraThis note last modified: 6th Jun 2016 17:37.