We are excited to announce that our internal panel have chosen from the array of entries images submitted to our 2022 astrophotography competition and have now selected the winner.
Although before we announce the 2022 winner, we’d like to take a moment to say a huge thank you to all the Astro photographers that took the time to enter. The standard of entries this year has been exceptional, we hope the competition keeps growing and we discover new Astro photographers each and every year!
Without any further suspense, the winner of the 2022 Astrophotography Competition is…
Carlos Uriarte Castilllo for his detailed image of Messier 16 – Atik 460ex
A few words from the winner:
Since I was a child, in my city Tarragona (Spain), I was amazed by the sky. The views to the south allowed me to observe those bright points that over the years I was amazed to understand that they were planets.
At the age of 14 my parents gave me my first telescope and I was able to observe objects that I never imagined, and I remember that those brilliant nebulae like Messier 42 caused me a deep sensation of beauty.
Over the years, I have gotten better at acquiring and processing knowledge and since I have my own observatory I have been able to get incredible images.
Do you remember that beautiful image of “the pillars of creation” from the Hubble Space Telescope? I have always contemplated those sources of star creation with beauty in books. And this summer I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity from my skies.So I was able to complete this beautiful image of Messier 16 with my telescope, capturing more hours to get excellent detail with my 7″ refractor. My result was so good that I wanted to complete more hours and get even brighter detail of the nebula, when you obtain excellent data the processing is wonderful and easy.This object is one of my best photographs that I also have printed and I can enjoy it every day. I am excited to receive this award and above all to be able to share it with you. Thank you very much Atik with all my heart!
Carlos Uriarte Castilllo YouTube channel
What an achievement! Carlos has chosen the impressive Apx60 from the Atik astro range of cameras, and we’ll look forward to seeing the results.
Along with our winner, we’d like to congratulate our runner-up that will win any Atik accessory. Our runner-up is…
Runner-up
João Vieira – IC1396 & SH2-129 – Atik One 6.0
About the image:
This photo of the Bat Nebula with the Squid inside and IC1396, is a two-pane mosaic taken from my home observatory. These are very beautiful objects of the northern sky and I wanted to include them in the same field for greater impact.
This is the result of 71 hours of exposures through a Samyang 135mm lens, using Ha and OIII filters and the Atik One 6.0 camera. The exposures date from 2020 and were processed in 2021 with some minor enhancements last year.
About the astrophotographer:
I live in central Portugal, 100 km north of Lisbon (not far from Atik production facilities) and my interest in Astronomy started with the construction of my own Newtonian telescope as it was still usual in 1986, the year of comet Halley.
I was interested in astrophotography from the beginning but I only started practicing it much later, when I bought my first camera. In the observatory, due to light pollution I work mostly with narrow-band filters.
João Vieira online gallery
Finally, we have our highly commended section for images that definitely deserve to be highlighted from this year’s entries.
Highly Commended
Lastly, we’d like to mention the two images in our highly commended section, kicking it off with the exceptional images of Jones-Emberson by Alexandre Egon (Atik One 6.0) and NGC2264 by Kapsis Thodoris (Atik 314L+).
Alexandre Egon – Jones Emerson – Atik One 6.0
Kapsis Thodoris – NGC2264 – Atik 314L+
My name is Kapsis Thodoris. I am from Greece and I live in Megalopoli, a little town in Arcadia in central Peloponnese.
At a very young age I realized that I like astronomy and so I started reading books related to space. At the age of 12, my parents gave me a telescope as a gift, later I got involved in astrophotography. Today I photograph the sky with my favorite camera ATIΚ 314L+.
About the photo: I took this photo from the roof of my house about a year ago. I remember it was getting close to Christmas and it was very cold. Through an 80 mm telescope and the ATIK 314 I managed and collected 10 hours of exposure. The result was this wonderful image.
Τhe Christmas Tree Cluster also known as NGC2264, it is an open cluster of stars embedded in a diffuse nebula. It is located in the constellation of Monoceros, the Unicorn. The image also contains two famous nebula. At the top of the image is the Cone Nebula, and to the middle left is the Fox Fur Nebula. The bright star in the center of the image is known as S Mon. In this image north is down and east is to the left.
Again, we’d like to congratulate Carlos for winning the Apx60 and our runners up for winning an accessory of their choice.
We look forward to seeing many more of your prize winning Astro photos in 2023!