Mr Big Dipper
A stargazer observes the constellation of the Big Dipper perfectly aligned with the window of the entrance to a large glacier cave in Engadin, Switzerland. This is a panorama of two pictures, and each is a stack of another two pictures: one for the stars and another one for the foreground, but with no composing or time blending.
Photo: Nicholas Roemmelt/National Maritime Museum
The Road Back Home
Noctilucent clouds stretch across the Swedish sky illuminating a motorcyclist’s ride home in this dramatic display. Noctilucent clouds are the highest clouds in the Earth’s atmosphere and form above 200,000 ft. Thought to be formed of ice crystals, the clouds occasionally become visible at twilight when the sun is below the horizon and illuminates them.
Photo: Ruslan Merzlyakov/National Maritime Museum
Auroral Crown
During an astrophotography tour of the Murmansk region with Stas Korotkiy, an amateur astronomer and popularizer of astronomy in Russia, the turquoise of the Aurora Borealis swirls above the snow covered trees. Illuminated by street lamps, the trees glow a vivid pink forming a contrasting frame for Nature’s greatest lightshow.
Photo: Yulia Zhulikova/National Maritime Museum
A Battle We Are Losing
The Milky Way rises above a small radio telescope from a large array at Miyun Station, National Astronomical Observatory of China, in the suburbs of Beijing. The image depicts the ever-growing light pollution we now experience, which together with electromagnetic noise has turned many optical and radio observatories near cities both blind and deaf – a battle that inspired the photographer’s title for the shot. The image used a light pollution filter (iOptron L-Pro) and multiple frame stacking to get the most of the Milky Way out of the city light.
Photo: Haitong Yu/National Maritime Museum
Aurora over Svea
The purples and greens of the Northern Lights radiate over the coal mining city of Svea, in the archipelago of Svalbard. The earthy landscape below the glittering sky is illuminated by the strong lights of industry at the pier of Svea.
Photo: Agurtxane Concellon/National Maritime Museum
Fall Milk
The snow-clad mountain in the Eastern Sierras, California, towers over the rusty aspen grove aligned perfectly in front of it, whilst our galaxy, the Milky Way, glistens above.
Photo: Brandon Yoshizawa/National Maritime Museum
Reflection
The reflection in the wave ripples of Skagsanden beach mirrors the brilliant green whirls of the Aurora Borealis in the night sky overhead. To obtain the effect of the shiny surface, the photographer had to stand in the wave zone of the incoming tide, and only when the water receded very low did the opportunity to capture the beautiful scene occur.
Photo: Beate Behnke/National Maritime Museum