Prize-winning photographer hopes to convey stars inside attain

A former class winner from China in one of many world’s high pictures competitions has gone one higher this yr and scooped the general first prize of 10,000 kilos ($13,500).

Together with colleagues Qi Yang and Chuhong Yu, Weitang Liang, a graduate from the School of Physics and Astronomy at Sun Yat-sen University, was named total winner on the ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2025 competitors for his or her picture The Andromeda Core. It comes three years after Liang gained the Stars and Nebulae class on his personal in 2022’s contest.

This yr’s competitors, its seventeenth staging, drew almost 6,000 entries from 68 nations, with the winners throughout 9 classes introduced at London’s Royal Observatory Greenwich just lately.

It was an excellent night time for China, as along with the general winner there have been six different prize winners, together with Yurui Gong and Xizhen Ruan, who gained the Sir Patrick Moore Best Newcomer prize, named after the legendary British astronomer, for his or her picture Encounter Across Light Years.

Chinese entrants had been additionally runner-up and extremely counseled within the Our Sun and Stars and Nebulae classes, and extremely counseled in People and Space.

The Andromeda Core follows within the footsteps of earlier total winners from China, Jin Yu’s Baily’s Beads in 2016, and Dong Shuchang’s The Golden Ring in 2021.

The successful picture of the core of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) was captured utilizing a protracted focal-length telescope on the AstroCamp Observatory in Nerpio in Southern Spain, the place clear skies and an absence of sunshine air pollution mix for distinctive visibility.

Ed Bloomer, one of many competitors judges and an astronomer at Greenwich, mentioned the picture’s artistry was as essential as its scientific content material, and known as The Andromeda Core “technically superb” with beautiful element and a color palette that was “really dramatic, bright but not garish”.

“The strong diagonal framing means it looks great close up and far away,” he added. “We knew visitors could come and get close to appreciate the detail, but also that it would stand out from the other end of a gallery space.” The successful picture is now on show with greater than 100 different entries on the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

While pictures of topics comparable to folks or nature is about capturing a selected second, astronomy photographic pictures will be compiled over days, by a number of folks. But as Liang mentioned, in a common context, days are tiny models.

“The exposure time in astronomy photography is really just a blink in the formation history of the universe,” he informed China Daily. “If we rescale the state of affairs within the time area, there should not too many variations (to different varieties of pictures).

“We used an automatic platform to control the telescope and instruments for taking photos every night, having set plans via a website, with automated software linked to the telescope’s remote computer. My job is to determine every detail of the imaging plans, then together we evaluate the images, reject failed ones, and set another imaging plan.”

At college, Liang took a number of astronomy courses, and he mentioned his earlier success within the competitors impressed him to find new features of the know-how and the topic this yr. He additionally mentioned he hoped advances in astrophotography would encourage extra folks in China to affix the neighborhood.

“The new generation has the advanced knowledge to work in this field, and they can do great jobs but based on the size of the Chinese population, the numbers are still not enough.”

The high-profile success of China’s Shenzhou house missions has gained international consideration, and Liang mentioned he hoped pictures might convey the general public nearer to the celebrities, and vice versa. “Astrophotography captures objects that belong to outer space, so we can satisfy ourselves with the pictures at first, and dream of someday seeing them in person,” he defined.

Bloomer additionally famous the position of China’s house missions in stirring up wider public curiosity. “They directly inspire lots of people and empower them to be part of that industry, but there are also lots of indirect connections,” he mentioned.

“It helps familiarize people with space in general. It gives people confidence to engage with it in a way that interests them; whether that’s artistically, through technology, visiting exhibitions or reading books.”