Universe Today
The World at Night's (
TWAN
) annual
Earth & Sky photography contest
showcases the stunning beauty of the night sky while highlighting the challenges of keeping our skies free from light pollution. TWAN has now announced the winners of this year's contest, and the winning photos are simply breathtaking. This year's theme of "Dark Skies Importance," were judged in two categories: "Beauty Of The Night Sky" and "Against The Lights," said Babak Tafreshi, the founder and director of TWAN," and the winners were selected from submissions by photographers in about 45 countries."
The selected images were judged to be those most effective in impressing the public on both how important and delicate the starry sky is as an affecting part of our nature, and also how bad the problem of light pollution has become.
Tafreshi added that "the amazing number of eye-catching entries from across the world tells how public attention to night sky is growing as well as interest to sky photography and we are very pleased if TWAN has a role on this increasing awareness."
The overall contest winner and first prize in the
Beauty Of The Night Sky
category is our lead image, taken by
Stephane Vetter
of France, for his March 2013 panoramic photo "Sky Above Godafoss" of aurora and the Milky Way over the "Waterfall of the Gods" in Iceland.
See more winners and more information about the contest below:
The first prize in
Against The Lights
category goes to Andreas Max Böckle of Austria for his photo "Under the Hood" taken from overlooking the city of Salzburg in a moonlit night:
[caption id="attachment_102147" align="aligncenter" width="580"]
Stars over Salzburg, Austria by Andreas Max Böckle, the first winner in Against the Lights category in TWAN 2013 Earth & Sky Photo Contest. [/caption]
David Malin, one of the judges and a world-known pioneer in scientific astrophotography said, "The 685 entries the judges examined (more than twice than the 2012 judged images) represent some of the best TWAN-style photographs ever gathered together in one place... I feel privileged to have seen so many beautiful images in such a short time!"
Click on the images here to see larger versions. You can see all the winners (and the great prizes they won) at
the TWAN website
, and this video highlights the winning photos:
[caption id="attachment_102149" align="aligncenter" width="449"]
'Crossed Destinies,' the Milky Way of Reunion Island, Indian Ocean by Luc Perro from France is the 2nd place winner in the Beauty of the Night Sky category in the TWAN 2013 Earth & Sky Photo contest. [/caption]
