Southern Hemisphere Public Vote 2026
It’s the 2026 nPAE Southern Hemisphere public vote! We’ve whittled down the entries to 5 of the best Southern Hemisphere astrophotos you will have seen for a long time! Whilst our judges decide the merits of each, you the astronomer public get to award the bragging rights of popular opinion.
We’ve got galaxies, nebulas, nebulas with deep field backgrounds! No planets, solar or lunar this year, despite those objects being visible from both hemispheres no one entered them!
We do have some detailed photographer’s notes for you to digest along with the excellent astrophotography.
In country alphabetical order here are the 6 to vote for. The voting panel is at the bottom of the page.
Argentina Carlos
Title of Astro photo: “Banfield’s pearls”
Category: Deep Sky
Imaging Target: NGC55 “String of Pearls Galaxy”
Equipment used:
Telescope: Askar FRA400 (Petzval quintuplet refractor)
Mount: ZWO AM5
Camera: ZWO ASI533MC Pro
Focuser: ZWO EAF
Guiding: ZWO 120 mm guide scope + ASI585MC
Controller: ASIair Plus
Galaxy
162 × 180″ lights. Total integration time: 8 h 6 m. The overall capture amounted to 38 hours, but only the best 21% were integrated.
Gain 100, -10 °C
Optolong L-Quad filter
Hα Regions
81 × 180″ lights. Total integration time: 4 h 3 m. The overall capture amounted to 14.5 hours, but only the best 28% were integrated.
Gain 100, -10 °C
Optolong L-eNhance filter
Stars
31 × 4″ lights. Total integration time: 2 m 4 s.
Gain 100, -10 °C
Unfiltered
Calibration
30 darks × 180″
30 darks × 4″
30 flats per session, taken at dawn, using the filter employed during that session
30 dark flats
Digital processing methods employed (if any):
Processed with PixInsight, BlurXterminator, NoiseXterminator, and StarXterminator. Three integrations were performed: one for the galaxy, one for the Hα Regions and one for the stars. These were then processed separately before being blended together. Final adjustments to color, curves, and saturation were applied to this combined image to produce the final result.
Description:
This image shows 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
“Masters”: galaxy, Hα, and natural stars.
In processing, I paid special attention and intention to achieve the following:
Since the Hα regions are nebulae within the galaxy, I wanted to capture them using the same technique employed for emission nebulae within our own galaxy. The challenge was to enhance them while keeping them natural.
To give the stars personality, respecting their colors (using Gaia as reference).
To preserve and refine a myriad of faint background objects. They can be appreciated by zooming into the image and exploring it patiently.
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
Assistance: the organisms in a drop of water, radio waves (omnipresent and absent at once), and, of course, the worlds and life that may be out there, in a tiny pixel of a photo taken from a little house in Banfield.
Argentina Gabriel
Title of Astro photo: Cosmic collision
Equipment used: Telescope ASKAR 120APO, Mount Rainbow Astro RST135E, Camera ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
Imaging Target: NGC4038 & NGC4039 (Antennae)
Digital processing methods employed (if any): Processing 100% with Pixinsight.
Australia Rod
Title of Astro photo: The South Celestial Serpent – MW9
Equipment used: William Optics Ultra-Cat 76 WIFD; Sky-Watcher Wave 150i mount; ZWO ASI2600MM Pro camera; UV/IR-cut and RGB filters. UV/IR-cut: 130 × 300 seconds; Red: 29 × 300 seconds; Green: 20 × 300 seconds; Blue: 38 × 300 seconds. Total integration: 18 hours 5 minutes, captured remotely from Victoria, Australia, on 4–5 June 2026.
Imaging target: Mandel-Wilson 9 (MW9), an exceptionally faint region of galactic cirrus in the southern constellation Apus, with distant background galaxies including IC 4633 and IC 4635.
The raw LRGB data was calibrated, aligned, and stacked in PixInsight using Weighted Batch Preprocessing (WBPP), with LocalNormalization applied to improve frame consistency. Background correction and gradient cleanup were performed prior to stretching. Stretch was done via GHS. Particular care was taken to distinguish genuine cirrus from background gradients and noise. Final tonal and colour refinements were completed in Adobe Photoshop.
Additional photographer’s notes:
Mandel-Wilson 9, nicknamed the South Celestial Serpent, is a remarkably faint stream of galactic cirrus illuminated not by a single star, but by the combined light of the Milky Way. Its dust winds through Apus like a river across the field, while distant galaxies remain visible through and beyond it.
The primary challenge was separating this extremely faint structure from the background without imposing artificial contrast or overwhelming its delicate texture. Processing was deliberately restrained to preserve the natural appearance of the dust and the depth of the surrounding field.
Australia Rodney
Title of Astro photo: Large Magellanic Cloud – Narrowband
Equipment used: Camera – ASI6200, Optics – Canon EF 200mm f2.8 lens, 50mm Astronomik RGB filters, 50mm Astronomik x 6nm Ha, SII, OIII filters
Imaging Target: Large Magellanic Cloud
Digital processing methods employed (if any): Image calibration, registration and integration in Pixinsight 1.9.3. Post processing in Pixinsight 1.9.3.
Hungary Lorand
Title of Astro photo: Blue Horsehead supermosaic
Equipment used: Sky-Watcher Esprit 80EDX, Pegasus Astro NYX-88 Harmonic Gear Mount, ZWO ASI2600MC Pro
Imaging Target:
•IC 4592
•IC 4601
I’d like to bring to your attention what is by far the largest project of my astrophotography career to date. The image consists of 9 mosaic tiles, each 26 megapixels, for a total of 172 megapixels, and the full photo (which you can als o see via the link) is over 100MB in JPG format. It required 57 hours of exposure and took a month and a half to complete.
*If you are viewing this on email please go to our website to vote*
