The winners of the 2025 ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year Award have been announced, showcasing an extraordinary collection of celestial images that capture the breathtaking beauty of our universe. The 17th annual competition, hosted by the Royal Observatory Greenwich in partnership with astronomy camera manufacturer ZWO, received over 5,800 submissions from photographers around the world. The results were revealed during a live-streamed ceremony on September 11, highlighting the incredible artistry and technical skill of modern astrophotographers.
The overall winner, a stunning portrait of the Andromeda Galaxy captured by photographers Weitang Liang, Qi Yang, and Chuhong Yu, will be featured in a special exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in the United Kingdom starting September 12. Their image, titled "The Andromeda Core," represents 39 hours of meticulous observation work conducted over multiple nights in 2024. The photograph reveals unprecedented detail in the heart of our closest neighboring spiral galaxy, showcasing complex structures that have rarely been captured with such clarity.
Judge László Francsics, an accomplished astrophotographer himself, praised the winning image for its unique approach to a frequently photographed subject. "Not to show it all – this is one of the greatest virtues of this photo," Francsics explained. "The Andromeda Galaxy has been photographed in so many different ways and so many times with telescopes that it is hard to imagine a new photo would ever add to what we've already seen. But this does just that, an unusual dynamic composition with unprecedented detail that doesn't obscure the overall scene."
The competition featured multiple categories, each showcasing different aspects of astronomical photography. In the Auroras category, Kavan Chay's "Crown of Light" captured the dramatic dance of red, green, and yellow auroras above Tumbledown Bay in New Zealand during a category G5 geomagnetic storm on May 10, 2024. The photographer used a Nikon Z 7 astro-modified camera to capture both the foreground and aurora over separate nights, creating a composite image that perfectly illustrates the power of solar-terrestrial interactions.
Marcella Giulia Pace won the "Our Moon" category with her ethereal image "The Trace of Refraction," which captures moonlight as it was scattered and refracted by Earth's atmosphere above Sicily on April 7, 2024. The colorful hues visible in the photograph result from Rayleigh scattering, the same phenomenon that creates blue skies and red sunsets, as shorter blue wavelengths are deflected while longer wavelengths pass through relatively unchanged.
The "Our Sun" category winner, James Sinclair's "Active Region of the Sun's Chromosphere," provides viewers with an intimate look at our star's turbulent atmosphere. The image shows the chromosphere, where hydrogen and helium plasma is constantly reshaped by the sun's ever-changing magnetic field. Sinclair achieved this remarkable detail using a 10-second exposure with a Lunt 130mm telescope paired with a Player One Astronomy camera, demonstrating the sophisticated equipment now available to amateur astronomers.
In the "People & Space" category, Tom Williams captured an extraordinary moment with his image "ISS Lunar Flyby," showing the International Space Station passing close to the moon's cratered surface as viewed from Wiltshire, UK. Using a Sky Watcher 400P GoTo Dobsonian telescope with an astronomy camera on a 1.5-millisecond exposure, Williams froze this fleeting celestial alignment on October 27, 2024.
Dan Bartlett's winning entry in the "Planets, Comets & Asteroids" category, "Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks Taking a Final Bow," showcases the wandering comet captured during early 2024 around solar maximum. Bartlett's technical expertise allowed him to reveal spectacular structural detail in the comet's tail, providing viewers with insights into the composition and behavior of these ancient solar system visitors.
The "Skyscapes" category featured Tom Rae's breathtaking panorama "The Ridge," which shows the Milky Way forming a galactic arch above glacial rivers in New Zealand's Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park. This technically ambitious image comprises 62 individual photographs totaling over one billion pixels, captured on April 8, 2024, demonstrating the lengths to which modern astrophotographers will go to capture the perfect shot.
In the "Stars & Nebulas" category, a collaborative team of Julian Zoller, Jan Beckmann, Lukas Eisert, and Wolfgang Hummel created "M13: An Ultra-Deep Exposure of the Popular Cluster," focusing on the Great Hercules Cluster located 22,200 light-years from Earth. Their dedication to the craft is evident in the 29 hours of total exposure time required to capture this teeming stellar city using a ZWO ASI2600MM Pro camera mounted on a 200mm Newtonian telescope.
Special recognition went to newcomers and young photographers as well. The Sir Patrick Moore Prize for Best Newcomer was awarded to Yurui Gong and Xizhen Ruan for their serendipitous capture "Encounter Across Light Years," which shows a bright Perseid meteor streaking through the same patch of sky containing the Andromeda Galaxy. This fortunate alignment was captured on August 12, 2024, during the peak of the Perseid meteor shower using a Nikon Z 30 camera.
Daniele Borsari, winner of the ZWO Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year award, demonstrated remarkable patience and skill with "Orion, the Horsehead and the Flame in H-alpha." This monochrome masterpiece of the famous Horsehead and Orion nebulas required over 22 hours of observations conducted over multiple nights in January and February 2024 from Italy, showcasing the dedication young astronomers bring to their craft.
Dr. Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory who served as one of the competition judges, emphasized the exceptional quality of this year's entries. "Once again, ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year offers up some of the best astrophotography in the world," Bloomer stated. "This year I believe we're particularly strong on images which ask the observer to really think about what they're looking at and investigate just how the astrophotographer has achieved those particular results, this proved true for the judges as well!"
The competition's special feature category honored NASA astronaut Don Pettit for his unique perspective in "Earth From Orbit," captured from the International Space Station in March 2025 during Expedition 72. Pettit used a homemade sidereal star tracker to account for the ISS's motion, allowing him to capture stars as fixed points while Earth blurred in its rotation below, creating a truly otherworldly perspective that only astronauts can achieve.
These award-winning images represent not only artistic achievement but also the remarkable advancement of accessible astronomy equipment and techniques. The competition continues to inspire both professional and amateur astronomers worldwide, demonstrating that the universe's most spectacular sights are within reach of dedicated photographers willing to invest the time and effort required to capture cosmic beauty.
