2023 World Champion Astrophotographer – Public Vote

21st October 202321st October 2023 Dave astrophotography, Astrophotography Competition

This is it everybody! It’s time for the BIG vote! The 2023 nPAE World Champion. Who will you choose?!

We have 3 exceptional images for you to choose from. The defending 2022 Champion, Yann from France with his Spaghetti Nebula. Then we have the 2023 Northern and Southern Hemisphere winners: Carl from the USA with Triangulum Blues and Gerald from South Africa with M17 the Omega Nebula.

As well as the ultimate bragging rights of being the nPAE World Champion, we also invite the winner to an interview to discover their astrophotography journey.

Tech stacks and images with close ups below:

The defending 2022 Champion is The Spaghetti Nebula from Yann in France. It is a HOORVB mosaic of 2 tiles taken with Takahashi FSQ106 EDX4 with 645-QE super reducer and Asi 2600MM Pro camera with Barilla (Antilla) RGB + H and O 3nm filters on an Eq6r-pro mount using an Altaïr 60/225 guide + asi 290mm mini. Acquisition was with N.I.N.A + Phd2 and processing: with Siril + PixInsight + Photoshop Pre-processing on Siril, Starless on each filter, processing and mixing in PixInsight with some cosmetic adjustment on Photoshop.

Carl from the USA won the 2023 Northern Hemisphere stage with Triangulum Blues. Additional Ha data turned up the red channel in this sparkling galactic shot of M33. Taken with a Takahashi FSQ-106EDXIII telescope, QHY600M camera, Astro-Physics 900GTO mount and Baader LRGB with Chroma Ha filter.

Gerald from South Africa won the 2023 Southern Hemisphere stage with M17, the Omega Nebula. Taken with a ZWO ASI294MM Pro, AT127EDT triplet refractor, Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro mount, ASI290MM mini mono guide camera and an Orion 60mm Guide scope. Stacked and processed in PixInsight. Gerald processed the narrowband images starless and then combined them in the SHO Hubble pallet. Then separately captured RGB stars were added back as the last stage of processing.

Who deserves to be the nPAE 2023 World Champion? Vote on the panel below and tell us why in the comments.

Who is the nPAE 2023 World Champion?

18 ( 26.09 % )

5 ( 7.25 % )

46 ( 66.67 % )

Alpha Lyra Reviews

On Our Theia 90 Star Diagonal
“First impressions of the diagonal itself are very favourable, looking like a solid and well-engineered piece of equipment.“ “Using Jupiter and a third quarter Moon, I evaluated scatter around the object which can diminish the visibility of low contrast surface features. If there were any differences in brightness and extent of the scatter (measured against the position of the Galilean satellites), I was unable to see it.“ “All these tests lead me to conclude that mirror in the Theia90 is of high quality and very much the equal of other quality, highly reflective mirror diagonals”

On Our Cerberus Case"The team seem rather proud of these cases and just how robust they are as Nick (who stands over 6 feet tall) demonstrated to me at Astrofest by standing on the case and then jumping up and down on it. [...] the Cerberus Case would be an excellent choice for an eyepiece case or as a travel case for a small 6-8cm aperture scope and accessories for trips to dark distant lands as those dimensions comply with the most restrictive of hand baggage allowances."
Full review here

6 thoughts on “2023 World Champion Astrophotographer – Public Vote”

Zlatko
22nd October 2023 at 11:47 am

Nice Spaghetti Nebula !
Jane
24th October 2023 at 10:36 am

Gerald’s dedicated attention to detail and precision photography makes this Omega Nebula come alive!
M. Ebeling
24th October 2023 at 12:05 pm

Excellent photography!!!
Viv Garside
24th October 2023 at 12:07 pm

All beautiful but no.3 takes my eye.
Ian
24th October 2023 at 2:21 pm

Very competent photographer.
Skilled and knowledgable.
Bill Brown
25th October 2023 at 9:44 am

All images are stunning.

Comments are closed.

Share this:

6 thoughts on “2023 World Champion Astrophotographer – Public Vote”