Photograph courtesy Stephane Vetter, TWAN
The
diminutive silhouette of a sky-watcher in Iceland last December is set
against the grandeur of a double cosmic arch encapsulating the Milky Way
and the northern lights. The picturesque Godafoss waterfall and
surrounding frozen landscape helps frame the picture, which won first
place in the Fourth International Earth and Sky Photo Contest's "Beauty of the Night Sky" category, organizers announced this week.
"This
submission is a stitched panorama of four pictures where the Milky Way
and the aurora curves extend right into the river and waterfall," said
Babak Tafreshi, director of The World at Night (TWAN) and one of the contest founders.
Founded by TWAN and the Dark Skies Awareness
project, the annual contest invites photographers to submit their best
shots of landscape astrophotography—pictures that showcase both the
Earth and the sky—as well as images that capture the battle against light pollution.
Photographers
from 45 countries submitted 685 entries to the contest this year and
were judged in two categories: "Beauty of the Night Sky" and "Against
the Lights."
"The amazing number of eye-catching entries
from across the world tells how public attention to night sky is
growing," said Tafreshi in a press release this week.
—Andrew Fazekas
Photograph courtesy Andreas Max Böckle, TWAN
Even
with the dazzling lights of Salzburg, Austria, shining in the valley, a
blanket of cold fog acts as a light-pollution filter, allowing the
stars above the surrounding mountain range to sparkle in this February
picture.
And despite the glow of a near full moon, the wintertime constellations of Orion and Taurus and the planet Jupiter burn brightly too.
"The
City of Salzburg and its light pollution causes me to travel about an
hour for fairly good star shooting conditions, and I always have to
handle that in my shots," said photographer Andreas Max Böckle.
This
photo won top honors in the "Against the Lights" category, which
recognizes images that show "how important and amazing the starry sky is
and how it affects our lives and also how bad the problem of light
pollution has become," says Tafreshi.
Photograph courtesy Luc Perrot, TWAN
Heaven
and Earth meet in this mystical portrait of the Milky Way appearing to
pour down into the Indian Ocean off the rocky coast of Reunion Island, France.
The
central bulge of our home galaxy—the downtown core of the Milky Way
some 30,000 light-years away from Earth—is partially obscured by dark
gas and dust in a spiral arm.
"This night, the swell was
particularly strong and I spent a few minutes behind the security
fence, but the desire was too intense to find a more striking point of
view so I bypassed the barrier and I headed towards the entrance of the
Gouffre until I got this magnificent perspective," said photographer Luc
Perrot.
Said Tafreshi: "This winning image by Luc
Perrot has captured a scene of pure nature with no touch of our modern
world, either in the sky or on the land."
Encroaching Light Pollution
Photograph courtesy Zachary Grether, TWAN
A
lone tree appears to stand guard next to Canyon Lake, Arizona, under a
canopy of stars in this early morning portrait created by Zach Grether.
The
dome of artificial light coming from the nearby small town of Globe,
Arizona, combined with the bright lights of the Canyon Lake Marina are
considered localized light pollution that is dim enough to let most of
the starlight be visible. However, the lights emanating from the large
city of Phoenix nearly 30 miles away washes out all but the brightest
stars.
"The night sky is an essential part of our
nature, and humans have been inspired by the starry sky for millennia,"
says Tafreshi. "But now two-thirds of the population live under
light-polluted skies [that are] not dark enough to see the Milky Way."
Falling Star
Photograph courtesy Shannon Bileski, TWAN
Like
a flying javelin, a bright meteor appears to pierce the ghostly green
glows of an aurora while diving down into the frozen waters off Patricia Beach in Manitoba, Canada.
Shannon
Bileski was at the right place and the right time to snap this magical
photo during a late night geomagnetic storm on March 29. "There were
bright bursts of green, which matched the green aurora dancing around
us!" she said.
Night Landscape
Photograph courtesy Norbert Span, TWAN
As part of the summer solstice celebrations, great bonfires stud the ridges of the Kalkkögel Mountains near Tyrol, Austria, in this night landscape shot taken last June.
For
hundreds of years, the local people in the Alps have celebrated the
summer solstice with great fires on the mountain ridges, explains
photographer Norbert Span.
"We were lucky, because on
the weekend close to the summer solstice, the weather was clear, which
is usually not the case," Span adds.
Green Auroras
Photograph courtesy Fredrik Broms, TWAN
A
dazzling green aurora spreads out over the entire overhead sky while
the moon lights up a slope of mountain birches in Grøtfjord in northern
Norway.
"Starting nightscape photography is fast and easy using off-the-shelf digital SLR cameras," says Tafreshi.
"But
for those who aim for serious landscape astrophotos, there are
challenges too: going to bizarre locations, planning carefully to be in
the right place at the right time, and making the effort to learn some
practical astronomy," he says.
Bridge to the Stars
Photograph courtesy Zachary Grether, TWAN
In this photo of what looks like a cosmic bridge to the stars, the Milky Way is on grand display behind Roosevelt Lake Bridge
in Arizona. Many faint stars invisible to the naked eye are captured in
this long-exposure shot, despite the bright orange glow from the old
mining town of Globe, Arizona, lighting up a bank of low-hanging clouds.
"The
selected images are 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," said Tafreshi in a press release.
"Light
pollution (excessive light that scatters to the sky instead of
illuminating the ground) not only is a major waste of energy, it also
obscures the stars, interferes with astronomical observatories and, like
any other form of pollution, disrupts ecosystems and has adverse health
effects."
Photograph courtesy Geoff Sims, TWAN
Fleeting darkness blankets the Australian outback, as the sun appears blotted out by a total solar eclipse above Pormpuraaw, Queensland, Australia, last November.
"From
this stunning location, we were able to observe the moon's umbral
shadow cone of this low-altitude eclipse race across the sky, above a
quintessential Australian outback locale," says photographer Geoff Sims.
During
a solar eclipse, as the moon moves between Earth and the sun, the
natural satellite's shadow is cast onto our planet. During the eclipse,
only sky-watchers within the moon's hundred-mile-wide
(160-kilometers-wide) shadow saw the sun completely "disappear."
This
shot captured the judges' attention because it "creates a short,
bizarre nightscape, and the phenomenon strongly connects astronomy and
nature," says Tafreshi.
Photograph courtesy Rick Whitacre, TWAN
A
menagerie of stars appear to wheel around the North Star above San
Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge in this long-exposure photo by Rick
Whitacre.
"Despite the bright lights of the Golden Gate
Bridge and San Francisco, our camera sensors still managed to record
many of the brighter stars," says Whitacre.
"Our own eyes are not as fortunate, as many of these stars aren't readily seen due to the bright glow from the city," he says.
Photograph courtesy Jia Hao, TWAN
sumber : http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/05/pictures/130514-photos-world-at-night-aurora-borealis-milky-way-meteor-light-pollution/#/
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