The 2025 Astronomy Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award has been won by Benjamin Barakat's 'Dragon Tree Trails', a breathtaking image of a lone Dragon's Blood tree against a backdrop of star trails. This image, captured from Firmihin Forest in Socotra, Yemen, showcases the apparent movement of stars as Earth rotates on its axis. Barakat's technique involved taking 300 individual exposures and stacking them to create the final image, utilizing underexposure and low ISO settings to achieve clean, vibrant trails. This image is truly magical and one of Barakat's favorite star trail images from around the world.
In second place, Steeve Body's 'The Vela Supernova Remnant' captures a cosmic cloud known as the Vela supernova remnant, the remains of a massive star that exploded long ago. This high-resolution image, spanning seven degrees and captured in natural color, is one of the deepest and most detailed ever taken of this region. Body used narrowband and color filters to enhance the natural appearance of the glowing gases, revealing faint structures that would otherwise remain hidden. This image is visible only from the southern hemisphere and was captured from the Australian outback under some of the darkest skies in the world.
In third place, Peter Greig's 'Raining Down On Dunstanburgh Castle' shows an aurora display over Embleton Bay in Northumberland, UK. This photo was captured during an intense solar storm, the most powerful Greig has ever witnessed in the UK. Greig chose a unique approach by moving to the castle's north side and pointing his camera south-east, framing the aurora above the castle from a rare perspective. Even with a wide-angle lens, the entire scene could not be captured in a single image, so Greig flipped his camera into landscape orientation and shot three images to create a vertorama.
These images showcase the beauty and wonder of the night sky, each capturing a unique and captivating moment. The Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, run by Royal Museums Greenwich in London, UK, is the biggest astrophotography competition in the world, welcoming hundreds of images of the night sky from entrants across the globe each year.
