There’s something wildly humbling about looking at a great astronomy photo. One second you’re scrolling through your day, and the next you’re staring into a glowing nebula that looks like an eye in deep space, a moon hanging over a snow-covered mountain, or a partial solar eclipse slipping through thick clouds like nature’s own magic trick. That’s exactly the feeling packed into the shortlisted images for the ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026.
This year’s competition pulled in nearly 4,000 submissions from 769 photographers, which honestly says a lot about how obsessed we are with the night sky and for good reason. Space never repeats itself the same way twice. It shifts, glows, erupts, disappears, and surprises. The shortlisted images reflect all of that, capturing the cosmos in ways that feel both scientifically fascinating and emotionally cinematic.
Now in its 18th year, the contest has become one of the biggest and most respected celebrations of astrophotography anywhere in the world. With nine categories, two special prizes, and an overall winner chosen by an expert panel, it’s a serious showcase of talent. The winning images will go on display at the National Maritime Museum in England from September 18, but for now, these shortlisted photographs are already giving us a jaw-dropping look at the universe at its most beautiful.
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#1. Golden Moonrise Over Seattle by AJ Smadi – Seattle, Washington, USA
"This picture reveals the city of Seattle, illuminated at twilight during a summer sunset. Above it, the orange Buck Moon is rising. The colour of the Moon reflected in Seattle’s skyline casts a golden light over the entire city, its deep glow adding presence to the image and providing a contrast to the sleek lines of the intricate architecture with its raw and rugged terrain."
#2. The Crimson Vortex and Sapphire Blossoms of Andromeda by Chuhong Yu and Zuoming Wang – Zhuanghe City, Liaoning Province, China
"This deep-field image of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) captures its dual nature: a crimson vortex of ionised gas and dust spiralling toward the supermassive black hole at its centre and sapphire "blossoms" – luminous blue stellar nurseries – blooming across its spiral arms."
#3. Supermoon Path Over Paris at Sunset by Martin Giraud – Meudon, Île-de-France, France
"A few days before New Year, I noticed on my planning app that the first Full Moon of 2026 would rise perfectly aligned with a spot that I had scouted years ago. The Eiffel Tower was 6.3 km (3.9 miles) away from my position, and the Sacré-Cœur Basilica was 11.1 km (6.9 miles) away. This explains why the Moon appears so large in the frame."
#4. Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) Over the Swiss Alps by Jakob Sahner – Tujetsch, Graubünden, Switzerland
"This photograph shows Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) in the early hours of the morning. The four-hour hike to this spot was worth it, even though I hadn’t done any planning beforehand on how to shoot this comet. I drove deep into the Swiss Alps to make the most of the last clear night before the new Moon cycle. The landscape was breathtaking and made a perfect foreground for the comet."
#5. Shadow Moon by Richard Addis – Wallasey, Merseyside, England
"I have always wanted to make a composite image using photographs of every lunar phase from the New Moon to the Full Moon. In April 2025 I finally had the opportunity. Two weeks of clear skies (a huge rarity in the UK) enabled me to collect enough data to put together this labour of love."
#6. Te Hoho Rock Moonrise by Evan McKay – Cathedral Cove, Waikato, North Island, Aotearoa New Zealand
"On this particular night I only had a small window to capture the sky before the Moon started to rise, so I decided to make the most of it. I got my mount polar-aligned during twilight and then started shooting the sky panorama from this location. The Moon began to rise soon after I finished the sky, so I then captured the foreground. The moonlight gave me the best of both worlds and did a fantastic job lighting up the foreground. To enhance the sky, I shot a separate panorama using a dual narrowband filter and blended it in to bring out the nebulae."
#7. Dancing Flames © 与晨 林, aged 14 – Xiamen, Fujian Province, China. Shortlisted in ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year Young competition
"This high-resolution H-alpha image of the Sun’s chromosphere was captured from home in decent seeing conditions. It reveals intricate surface details including sunspots, solar flares, filaments and prominences along the solar limb."
#8. Fairyland by Uroš Fink – Velika Planina, Kamnik-Savinja Alps, Slovenia
"Velika Planina is one of the most beautiful places in Slovenia, a paradise for photographers where they never run out of compositions. In the foreground of this image you can see a settlement with the wooden huts that are characteristic of the area, while in the background the core of the Milky Way rises in all its beauty."
#9. Moody Partial Solar Eclipse by James McBeath
"Here, the partial solar eclipse of 2025 was shot through fast moving clouds on what was a beautiful spring morning. I spent several hours in a local park tracking the eclipse with my camera, showing many passers-by what I was doing and giving them a good view of the eclipse. I ended up with hundreds of shots, but this one, with the clouds framing the Sun perfectly, immediately caught my eye. I am very happy with most of the shots I took that day, but this one is easily the dreamiest."
#10. Suspended Plasma by Mario Cogo – Monticello Conte Otto, Vicenza, Italy
"The solar limb, presented in inverted tones and enhanced colour, reveals a ‘filaprom’ (filament-prominence) that rises like an arc of fire shaped by invisible magnetic forces. Nearby, a filament winds across the luminous surface, cutting through the incandescent plasma. The tonal inversion heightens the contrast and creates a vivid sense of three-dimensionality, revealing the dynamic nature of our star."
#11. Fifteen Minutes of Moonset and Sunrise Over the Golden Gate by Fredric Walder – San Francisco, California, USA
"This composite image shows five separate captures of the setting Full Moon, taken as the sky changed from a deep blue, in which the pinkish glow known as the Belt of Venus was visible, to full golden-hour illumination. I have attempted to show the evolution of both the colour and luminosity of the sky by keeping the lunar disc at approximately the same brightness in each section."
#12. An Auroral Deluge by Julien Cadena – Lyngen, Troms, Norway
"I had set up my camera facing the iconic ‘Devil’s Teeth’ peaks on the island of Senja in Norway. I was hoping the Northern Lights would rise directly above the jagged summits, but they flared up in the opposite direction instead. Their intensity and speed were breathtaking."
#13. Mars in 2025 by Tom Williams – Trowbridge, Wiltshire, England
"This composite image shows several views of Mars after it reached opposition, the point at which Earth was directly between Mars and the Sun. All the images were captured at the same scale, highlighting how quickly the planet decreases in apparent size as it recedes from Earth. Seasonal changes are also visible, with the polar ice cap shrinking as the planet’s northern hemisphere enters local spring/summer."
#14. I Hear the Stars by João Yordanov Serralheiro – Aldeburgh Beach, Suffolk, England
"This image of star trails above the Scallop sculpture on Aldeburgh Beach has been a long time coming while I waited for the right night and conditions. It represents the quiet and peaceful feeling of sitting down by the sea, listening to the waves come and go as time passes by – demonstrated here by the movement of the stars."
#15. Meteor Shower Over the Big Dipper by ZhiPu Wang – Sanming, Fujian Province, China
"The Geminid meteor shower was once again reliable in 2025, with numerous bright meteors. After its radiant [the point from which the meteors appear to emanate] rose on the night of 14 December, the sky was filled with falling stars."
#16. Watched by the Moon by Jean-François Gely – Arvieux, Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France
"Once a month, the Moon rises just as the Sun sets. This creates fantastic natural scenes. I love finding the perfect spot from which to photograph it with an iconic peak like Bric Bouchet, as seen here."
#17. Aurora Over Causey Reservoir by Samuel Morse – Weber County, Utah, USA
"I managed to catch this aurora near Causey Reservoir with a friend of mine. We were up against clouds and heavy traffic, with a lot of people trying to see the same auroral display as us, but we managed to find it. This is a straightforward single-frame image with no compositing or other alterations, although I did push the colour balance a bit towards blue to bring out the vibrancy and produce colours that were complementary to the red in the sky."
#18. Colourful Aurora and Waterfall by Yifan Cao – Goðafoss Waterfall, Þingeyjarsveit, Iceland
"I witnessed a major aurora outburst in Iceland, during which the whole sky shone green, red and purple. Goðafoss Waterfall is a famous scenic spot which is strongly linked to Norse mythology. I stayed there for two days, looking at the forecast every hour, to try to capture this unforgettable moment."
#19. Setsu-getsu-ka by Takanobu Kurosaki – Asahi, Toyama Prefecture, Japan
"Setsu-getsu-ka is a traditional Japanese expression that means “snow, moon and flowers”. This photograph captures that trio at the Funakawa River by framing Mount Asahi – Asahi’s symbolic peak – and cherry blossom trees under a lunar halo and a rare, faint tangent arc [optical phenomena caused by the refraction of moonlight through ice crystals in clouds]."
#20. NGC 7293: The Helix Nebula by Humbert Cédric – Elqui Province, Coquimbo, Chile
"NGC 7293, better known as the Helix Nebula, is one of the closest and most spectacular planetary nebulae observable from Earth. It is located about 650 light years away in the constellation Aquarius."
#21. Cosmic Neighbours: Beauty and the Beast by Yijing Zhu and Xinghan Yang – Ürümqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China
"This image captures a dramatic cosmic pairing: the serene elegance of Bode’s Galaxy (M81, left) alongside the chaotic violence of the Cigar Galaxy (M82, right). Located about 12 million light years from Earth, these two neighbours are locked in a gravitational dance that has shaped their destinies profoundly. M81 retains its perfect grand design spiral form, a picture of galactic grace."
#22. Gum 37: The Southern Tadpoles (or ‘Teapot Nebula’) by Ani Shastry – El Sauce Observatory, Río Hurtado, Chile
"Gum 37 is an HII-complex in the southern sky, where stellar radiation carves pillars, rims and curling shock fronts. It is commonly called the Southern Tadpoles Nebula, but the longer I look, the more I think it resembles a cosmic teapot pouring cobalt mist into the dark."
#23. Solargraph 182 Days by Ksawery Wrobel – Shortlisted in the Annie Maunder Open Category
"Solargraphy is a photographic technique that uses a homemade pinhole camera and photosensitive paper to create extremely long exposures. Depending on how long the camera remains in place, the final image records the Sun’s path across the sky from dawn to dusk, as well as its gradual shift from north to south (or vice versa) between the solstices."
#24. A Deep Look Into the Milky Way’s Core by Jakob Sahner – Koireb, Windhoek Rural, Namibia
"I captured this mosaic with two cameras – one for RGB colour and one for H-alpha – to capture as much detail and structure as possible."
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is the ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026 competition?
The ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026 is a prestigious astrophotography competition celebrating the best space and night-sky images from around the world. It highlights artistic and technical excellence across multiple categories, showcasing how photographers capture the beauty, mystery, and drama of the cosmos.
How many images were submitted to Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026?
The 2026 competition received nearly 4,000 entries from 769 photographers. That huge number reflects both the global popularity of astrophotography and the contest’s reputation as one of the leading platforms for photographers who specialize in celestial events, deep-sky objects, and stunning night landscapes.
What kinds of photos appear on the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026 shortlist?
The shortlist includes a wide range of celestial subjects, from glowing nebulae and dramatic eclipses to moonlit mountain scenes and atmospheric sky events. Together, the images show the incredible diversity of astrophotography, blending science, timing, patience, and visual storytelling into unforgettable cosmic moments.
Where will the winning astronomy photographs be exhibited?
The winning photographs from the ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026 competition will be displayed at the National Maritime Museum in England. The exhibition opens on September 18, giving visitors the chance to experience the year’s most remarkable astrophotography images in a curated museum setting.
Why is the Astronomy Photographer of the Year considered an important competition?
Astronomy Photographer of the Year is considered important because it brings together world-class astrophotographers and celebrates both artistic creativity and astronomical observation. It has grown into one of the most respected competitions in the field, helping showcase the universe through images that inspire wonder and curiosity.
