2025 World Champion Public Vote
Get your decision making hats on! This is the nPAE 2025 World Champion Astrophotographer public vote where you – the great astronomy public – get to choose who walks away with the ultimate in bragging rights! The winners of the 2025 Northern and Southern Hemisphere stages go head to head with the previous nPAE World Champion in a social media voting showdown.
We have 3 awesome images for you to deliberate over. Each is worthy, and it is an achievement in its own right to arrive here. For your consideration we have:
The Defender
The current holder of the nPAE World Champion is Simone from Italy with The Witch’s Gaze. Equipment used: William Optics RedCat 51 II – ZWO ASI2600MM Pro – Sky-Watcher EQ6 – Antlia EDGE H-alpha 4.5nm 2″ · Antlia Luminance 2″ · Antlia V-Pro Blue 2″ · Antlia V-Pro Green 2″ · Antlia V-Pro Red 2″. This image is so good at multiple levels and this is the reason it won. The Witch’s gaze, the reflection nebula IC2118, staring toward the star Rigel in Orion is stunning in of itself. An examination of the close ups and there are pin sharp stars across the field, Rigel is amazing and the top of the witch’s head has superb nebulosity. There are even spiral armed galaxies to be made out in the far background.
The 2025 Northern Hemisphere Winner
Taking advantage of the remote imaging rule Rod from Australia enters his “Into the Cosmic Shadows”: Wolf’s Cave Nebula taken with Telescope Live. Equipment Used: Telescope: Takahashi FSQ106ED; Camera: FLI PL16083; Filters: Astrodon HaLRGB, 14 hours in HaLRGB. The raw data was calibrated, aligned, and stacked in PixInsight using Weighted Batch Pre-processing (WBPP). Local Normalization was applied to ensure consistent background levels across frames. The integrated image then underwent GraXpert background extraction to correct for gradients before further processing. By bringing this lesser-known nebula into focus with a carefully curated palette and advanced data refinement, this image offers a fresh perspective on an underappreciated region of the night sky, combining scientific accuracy with an artistic approach to deep-sky imaging.
The 2025 Southern Hemisphere Winner
Carlos from Peru enters The Cosmic Butterfly Nebula. NGC 2899. Equipment used: 8″ f/3.9 Newtonian telescope. ZWO ASI 715 MC camera. EQ6R-PRO Sky-Watcher mount. ZWO Duo-Band filter. Digital processing: 180 × 60s exposures (3 hours total integration). Stacking in DeepSkyStacker. Processing in PixInsight: cropping, background extraction, color calibration, deconvolution, noise reduction, linear stretching, star reduction, color saturation, contrast adjustment. Post-processing in Photoshop. The sublime elegance and beauty of a butterfly combines with the awesomeness of astronomy to create an amazing image.
Vote on the panel below by selecting your favourite picture with the tick box and then click vote.
31/10/2025
Rod wins the nPAE World Champion title with 65% of the vote. Congratulations Rod. That is an epic win!
