We are delighted to announce that our expert panel have chosen from the excellent images submitted to our 2019 astrophotography competition and have now crowned the winner. Before announcing the winner, everyone at QSI would like to thank all those that have submitted an entry. As astrophotographers ourselves, we know first-hand the skill, dedication, and effort that is involved with capturing targets and the mixture of excitement and nerves that are involved in submitting an entry into an online astrophotography competition.
Our competition will be running again throughout 2020 so follow our social media channels for news on when the new competition opens, we are anticipating yet another year of inspiring images!
2019 Astrophotography Competition Winner
Andrew Campbell – Deep in the Heart of Mordor, NGC 7293 – QSI 683
About the image: Shot in the Australian spring of 2018, this image had a total integration time of approximately 61 hours and Andrew used narrowband and LRGB filters in capturing this image. Additionally, as Andrew wanted to show the O3 eye structures in the iris, masking was used in Photoshop to balance the Ha/O3 present.
About the astrophotographer: Andrew Campbell is a Grand Master of the Australian Institute of Professional Photography, a Fellow of the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography and a Master Photographer of the WPPI (USA). Andrew’s obsession began in 2012 when a friend donated him an old Newtonian telescope. Andrew was immediately intrigued by the possibility of attaching a camera and photographing the heavens. This soon led to Andrew purchasing several serious telescopes and an equatorial mount with a QSI 683 wsg8 cooled mono astronomical camera with LRGB and narrowband filters. In 2015 Andrew was honoured to win the Deep Sky section of the prestigious CWAS “David Malin Awards”, Australia’s premier astrophotography competition. Andrew was also named the 2015 & 2016 AIPP Australian Science Photographer of the Year, and the AIPP Victorian Science Photographer of the Year 2015, 2016 & 2017. His images have been featured as NASA’s astronomy picture of the day on six occasions and he was shortlisted in the 2019 Insight International Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. Learn more about Andrew on his website here.
Runners Up
Bruce Waddington – Shell Galaxy in Pisces, NGC 474 – QSI 640
About the image: This image was captured from Bruce’s observatory in New Mexico, USA, with Bruce taking exposures on seven nights in October and November 2019. The total exposure time on the target was 24.5 hours in order to capture the very faint shell extensions around the galaxy. 15.5 hours of luminance were shot un-binned, and the 8.8 hours of RGB colour were shot with 2×2 binning, all under the control of self-authored automation software. Post-processing was completed in CCD Stack, PixInsight and Photoshop CS5.
About the astrophotographer: Bruce began astro-imaging 15 years ago and has been using QSI Cameras since 2013. Bruce also spends plenty of time writing free software for astro-imaging including heavy involvement in the PHD2 open source telescope guiding software project.
Suavi Lipinski – Cat’s Paw – QSI 690
About the image: The data for this image was acquired in brisbane, Australia, with a 102mm ED doublet and a set of 3nm filters. Exposure times were: Ha32x900s, OIII24x900s and SII20x900s.
About the astrophotographer: Suavi has most often taken astronomy images from heavily light polluted locations in major Australian cities and consequently settled on narrowband imaging and the QSI 690. Commenting on the QSI 690, Suavi said “The QSI 690 has proven to be a very capable camera for the not easy task of extracting space data from light pollution, in fact it has taken me a few years to learn to take full advantage of the camera’s capabilities.”
Highly Commended
Additionally, the following images were found to be very impressive by our panel and certainly worthy of a mention.
Once again, congratulations to Andrew on his winning image and winning a QSI 6162 whilst Bruce and Suavi win a QSI accessory of their choice, and thanks to all that sent in an entry. Our 2020 competition will open soon and we look forward to seeing the selection of inspiring images that we will receive throughout the year.