Final contenders revealed for 2026 Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition

This deep-field image of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) captures its dual nature: a crimson vortex of ionised gas and dust spiraling toward the supermassive black hole at its centre and sapphire "blossoms" – luminous blue stellar nurseries – blooming across its spiral arms. Chuhong Yu and Zuoming Wang via CNN Newsource

Four miles from the Eiffel Tower, a photographer captured the full moon’s path over a pink Paris skyline. In China, another photographer snapped a night sky of falling stars.

These are just two of the submissions short-listed in the 18th annual Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. Organized by the Royal Observatory Greenwich, the competition drew nearly 4,000 submissions from 769 photographers in 66 countries. Entries include photographs of auroras, galaxies and landscapes of Earth’s moon.

Some images are impressive from a technical standpoint, said Greg Brown, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory and a judge for the competition.

Finalist Tom Williams, he noted, highlights several views of Mars within a year, all in a single composite image titled “Mars in 2025.”

Finalist Rafael Schmall photographed “The Savannah Tree” from Hungary, capturing a solar prominence — or a dense plasma cloud — erupting in the shape of an acacia tree from the surface of the sun.

“It’s a very stunning, very striking image,” Brown said, adding that it gives the viewer a “feeling of motion and movement of the active nature of the sun.”

Brown described the competition as a “weird mix” of innovative, technical imagery and science.

“It’s an art competition just as much as it is anything else,” Brown said. “The beauty of the images, the wonderful array of colors and compositions, can be appreciated regardless of your understanding of what it is exactly that you’re looking at.”

Judges will choose winners in nine categories as well as award two special prizes and select one overall winner.

“It doesn’t usually take a whole lot of debate for the judges to come to a decision about what image it is,” Brown said. “There’ll always be something about it that makes it stand out.”

The Astronomy Photographer of the Year will receive 10,000 pounds (about US$13,300), while each category winner will be awarded 1,500 pounds (about $2,000). Runners-up and highly commended entrants will receive smaller monetary prizes.

The winning images will be announced September 17. They will be displayed in an exhibition at London’s National Maritime Museum, alongside a selection of other short-listed images.

Sneha Dhandapani, CNN