2026 nPAE World Champion Astrophotographer
This the time of year we at nPAE all look forward to! Not the upcoming holidays or even the advent of a new dark nights season of astronomy, it’s the nPAE World Champion Astrophotographer public vote! You the great astronomy public get to choose from 3 stunning images. Each one is a winner having won the respective stage to get to the World Champion vote
Let’s look at all 3 in detail.
The Defender
The current holder is Rod from Australia. 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 2026 Northern Hemisphere Winner
Lorand from Hungary won the 2026 Northern Hemisphere stage with “Planetary Project of 2025” which is a stunning mosaic at 1:1 scale of Planetary Nebula.
The 168 hours of exposure can be seen on the board. The images were taken with the same telescope and can be viewed at 1:1 scale. I may be showing a new side to six planetary nebulae. The unique and wonderful world of Jones-Emberson 1 is perhaps the least known. Huge, like a cosmic magnifying glass, it is a magical world together with the galaxies behind it. The three Messier objects are all popular subjects, but their outer regions are rarely captured. NGC 40 is a tiny nebula, made truly special by the gently undulating supernova remnant behind it. The Bubble Nebula: at this resolution, you can really see the undulating details. This is very much an astrophotographer’s astro photograph! The detail here is extreme with deep fields showing distant galaxies!
The 2026 Southern Hemisphere Winner
Carlos from Argentina won the 2026 Southern Hemisphere stage with NGC 55, known as the String of Pearls Galaxy: a barred Magellanic-type galaxy seen edge-on, located approximately 6.5 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor. This galaxy has an asymmetric, elongated structure, with numerous star-forming regions glowing in Hα red and blue clusters of young stars.
“I captured it from Banfield, in the southern part of Greater Buenos Aires, Argentina, over 11 nights spread between October and November 2025. I dedicated 8 nights to the L-Quad filter, which helps mitigate light pollution; three nights to the L-eNhance filter, to enhance the Hα regions; and at the beginning of one of those nights, I took the short-exposure photographs that I would later integrate to add the stars to the final composition. The final image combines those three.
In this single photograph (covering ~1.61° × ~1.61° of sky), 657 galaxies and 14 quasars are identified. It is like looking at a drop of water through a microscope: technological ingenuity makes visible what was invisible to the naked human eye. Once one has gone through this kind of experience, it is worthwhile to cultivate the habit of reflecting on all that exists yet remains imperceptible without.”
Vote on the panel below. Voting closes at midnight on Sunday 1st November
