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The 2024 Milky Way Photographer of the Year honors the marvels of our galaxy in their high-resolution splendor.
The 2024 Milky Way Photographer of the Year, hosted by Capture the Atlas, a prestigious travel and photography platform, showcases the splendor of our galaxy with a compilation of the year’s most breathtaking Milky Way images. This edition signifies the 7th annual contest, presenting 25 awe-inspiring photographs taken by photographers from 19 distinct nationalities across 15 countries, which include the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, France, Switzerland, Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Egypt, Oman, Yemen, and Jordan. Curated by Dan Zafra, the editor of Capture the Atlas, the selected images were sourced from over 5,000 submissions, underscoring the remarkable talent, commitment, and enthusiasm of photographers worldwide.
This competition is a tribute to astrophotography and acts as a source of motivation, inspiring photographers to discover new locales and convey their distinct viewpoints of the nocturnal sky. The season for viewing the Milky Way spans from February to October in the Northern Hemisphere and from January to November in the Southern Hemisphere, with prime visibility generally occurring between May and June, when the sight is at its best. To seize extraordinary celestial instances, photographers often venture to isolated, mountainous sites far from the brightness of urban areas, thus enabling clearer and more striking observations of the galaxy.
The representation of images from the Middle East in the 2024 Milky Way Photographer of the Year underlines the region’s lasting bond with the stars. Our area boasts a rich tradition of astronomy that stretches back thousands of years, with ancient civilizations like the Babylonians and Egyptians making considerable advancements in the discipline. For instance, Babylonian astronomers were among the pioneers in documenting celestial occurrences and constructing intricate mathematical systems to forecast astronomical events; Omani mariners navigated vast distances using the stars as their compass, and illustrious astronomers such as ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi and Abu Mashar al-Balkhi charted the stars and broadened our understanding of the galaxy.
In ancient Egypt, the orientation of the pyramids with celestial entities and the exact positioning of temples to signify solstices and equinoxes demonstrates a profound, ancient intrigue and comprehension of the universe. During the Islamic Golden Age, Arabs and Muslims from throughout the MENA region further propelled the field by translating Greek manuscripts, preserving ancient wisdom, and making essential contributions such as the inception of algebra, which was vital for complex astronomical calculations. Pioneering scholars like al-Battani, Ibn Zarqala, and Ibn al-Haytham achieved significant milestones in time measurement, planetary movement studies, and the early development of observational tools.
This heritage endures today, with contemporary astronomers and photographers in the region employing cutting-edge technology to investigate the night sky. The magnificent visuals from the 2024 Milky Way Photographer of the Year contest not only encapsulate the allure of our galaxy but also act as a testament to the Middle East’s historical and continued contributions to astronomy. Within the subsequent pages, you will discover images from various parts of our region, which may inspire you to contemplate the stars when life becomes a bit more leisurely.
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