Southern Hemisphere Public Vote 2024

It’s with great excitement we open this year’s Southern Hemisphere astrophotography competition to the public vote! The final 9 demonstrate creativity and excellence in equal measure. A huge amount of talent and hardware comes together to produce images of this quality, so please read all the details and choose carefully. You only have one vote!

In country alphabetical order, here are your 9 options!

Our first entry is from Ali in Australia with “The fish and the bull skull”. Known by their catalogue number G296.5+10 or ESO 217-25.

The Betta fish nebula and the neighboring unnamed SNR are fragments of a 14,000 year old supernova remnant G296.5+10 or ESO 217-25 only visible from the Southern hemisphere. This target was quite tricky to capture as it is very dim even in dark sky conditions.

Taken on a Founder Optics 106 F6 triplet with these cameras: ZWO 2600mm Pro, ZWO EFW EAF, ZWO AM3. Captured over 27 hours across multiple nights with Ha and O3 filters. Processed as HOO image. Stacked and processed in Pixinsight.

Jonathon from Australia enters “Kitty hiding in Eta Carinae”. His equipment was an Svbony sv605 mono camera, Svbony 102ed scope, NEQ6 mount, NINA, PHD2 and processed in Pixinsight. 84 x 180 sec lights (4.2hrs), Darks, Flats, Dark Flats SHO.

Rod from Australia enters “Mystical Heart of the Eagle” Equipment Used: Telescope: Celestron Ultima 9-1/4 (90’s Telescope); Imaging Cameras: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro; Antlia S+H+O 3nm Filters

The Celestron Ultima 9-1/4 telescope is from 1995, a testament to the enduring quality of classic equipment. Paired with the ASI2600MM-Pro camera. Processed in PixInsight using the Hubble palette.

Rodney, a previous Southern Hemisphere stage winner, also from Australia enters his four panel mosaic of NGC6188 – the Dragons of Ara. Equipment used QSI 683 CCD camera, Tak TSA120 OTA, Astronomik filters. All calibration, registration, integration and post processing was completed in Pixinsight v1.8.9.

Lucas from Brazil enters his Milky Way photo taken using a Canon T5 with an 18-55mm lens, capturing 30 light frames and 10 dark and flat frames, stacked in DSS and edited in Photoshop.

Carlos from Peru enters The Great Eta Carinae Nebula taken with the following equipment: Newton 800/200 f.4 Telescope, Skywatcher Eq6R-Pro Mount, ZWO Asi 294mm pro camera, 7nm Ha, Oiii and Sii filters. Processed in PixInsight using Star Alignment, Crop, Gradient Correction, noise reduction, stretching, pixel math in SHO palette, histogram adjustment, convolution, contrast, saturation and star reduction and then post processing in Photoshop.

Kartik from the UK takes advantage of a vacation trip to Hamilton, New Zealand for some astrophotograhy to enter his Wide-field Carina Nebula taken with a Nikon D750 (astromodified), AF-S Nikkor 85mm f/1.8G lens. Untracked. 200 images of 10 seconds exposure each taken at f/2.2 and ISO 1600 taken. Digital processing methods employed were 200 images stacked in ASTAP and processed in Pixinsight. Final processing completed in Adobe Photoshop.

Richard takes advantage of a remote imaging opportunity to capture the Fighting Dragons of Ara. Imaged remotely from Chile via ITelescope. Scope and camera is Takahashi Epsilon 180ED f2.8 and ZWO ASI2600MM. Processed with StarTools. Exposure details: Ha 12×600 sec, Sii 20×600 sec, Oiii 17×600 sec. 8 hours, 10 min total.

Gerald from South Africa, who is a previous Southern Hemisphere winner and the current nPAE World Champion, enters his image titled “Carina’s Smile” Produced with following equipment: ZWO ASI2600MM Pro cooled to -10 degrees Celsius, AT127EDT triplet refractor, Sky-Watcher EQ6-R Pro mount, ASI290MM mini mono guide camera and an Orion 60mm Guidescope. Processed in PixInsight a total of 6 hours of 5 minute narrowband images and 30 minutes of 30 second R, G and B images. The narrowband stars from the narrowband images were removed and then processed the starless images into the SHO pallet colour image. The RGB stars from the RGB images were removed and then added them back in to the SHO image taking care not to allow the stars to dominate the final image. The PixInsight image was then converted to a JPG using Lightroom Classic.

The new nPAE 2″ Flip Mirror is now available!

Vote on the panel below and tell us why in the comments!

What is your favourite 2024 Southern Hemisphere astro photograph?

The fish and the bull skull

The fish and the bull skull 140 ( 21.88 % )

Kitty hiding in Eta Carinae

Kitty hiding in Eta Carinae 1 ( 0.16 % )

Mystical Heart of the Eagle

Mystical Heart of the Eagle 242 ( 37.81 % )

Four panel mosaic of NGC6188

Four panel mosaic of NGC6188 4 ( 0.63 % )

Milkyway

Milkyway 163 ( 25.47 % )

The Great Eta Carinae Nebula

The Great Eta Carinae Nebula 7 ( 1.09 % )

Wide field Carina Nebula

Wide field Carina Nebula 4 ( 0.63 % )

Richard Fighting Dragons of Ara

Richard Fighting Dragons of Ara 12 ( 1.88 % )

Carina’s Smile

Carina’s Smile 67 ( 10.47 % )

Results Vote

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