(Photos are the copyrighted property of the photographers. Permission to use any of their photos for other purposes must be obtained from the photographer.)
These photos are this year's entries (winners will be noted). You may be able to right-click on an image and view it in a separate tab/window to see a larger zoomable version.
Wide Field
Nightscape photo of the central Milky Way taken on the evening of Aug. 29, 2025. Camera: Canon R6II. A 15-second exposure with 17 mm lens at ƒ/4 and ISO 6400.
Taken on the evening of July 29, 2025. Camera: Canon R6II. A 30-second exposure with a 40 mm lens taken at ƒ/5.0 and ISO 2000.
Moon and Venus over farmland. This image of the Waning Crescent ~10% Moon and Venus over Farmland on Sunday October 19, 2025 at 6:51 AM ET. PM ET. Equipment was Nikon Coolpix P950 handheld for this single exposure. Focal length 15.2 mm f/4 exposure time 1/30. Resized in GIMP.
Geese Flying under a Full Moon. This image of the almost full Moon (hours from full) as a flock of Canada Geese fly underneath. This image was captured Tuesday, November 4, 2025 at 6:05 PM ET. Equipment was Nikon Coolpix P950 handheld for this single exposure. Focal length 24.1mm f/4 exposure time 1/250. Noise reduction in Topaz Photo AI; Resized in GIMP.
Little Tree By The Sea The Milky Way. I took advantage of the clear skies on this early morning to photograph the Milky Way along the coast. The harsh coastal conditions of poor soil, high winds and salt spray have stunted the growth of this spruce tree limiting it to a small dense shrub like growth form resembling broccoli or a bonsai tree. The tree is only about five feet tall and is much older than it appears. This tree form is known as Krummholz spruce meaning crooked wood. Capture Details: May 8, 2024, 2:22 AM Canon 6D camera, Irix 30mm f1.4 lens at f2.2 Exposure 20 sec. At ISO 1600 Processed using only Adobe camera raw
Cosmic Coastline Comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan – atlas) The comet was just naked eye visible once you knew where to look. This was a real cosmic adventure, dodging tides, crossing rivers, climbing over slippery rockweed covered rocks and passing through arches and tunnels created by tidal erosion. Capture Details: Oct., 22, 2024, 8:00 PM Canon 6D, Irix 21mm f1.4 lens at f1.6 Exposure 15 Sec. At ISO 1600 Processed in Adobe camera RAW only.
Solar System
ZWO ASI2600MM, EFW Filter wheel, Skywatcher Esprit 100ED, Focal Ratio 5.5. Optolong Red – 14 × 60s on Oct 24th, Optolong Green – 15 × 60s on Oct 24th, Optolong Blue – 24 × 60s on Oct 24th
Processing: SetiAstro Automatic DBE, BlurX, NoiseX, LinearFit, CometAlignment, StarX, Colorcalibration, SetiAstro StatisticalStretch, RangeSelection, CometAlignment on combined stacked comet and stars only to align the RGB channels.
A telephoto of a 22-hour crescent moon after sunset on Feb. 28, 2025.
Camera: Canon R6II. A 1/40 second exposure with 400mm lens at ƒ/5.6 at ISO 12800.
Telephoto of the partial solar eclipse after sunrise on March 29, 2025. Camera: Canon R6II, A 1/6400-second exposure with 400 mm lens taken at ƒ/14 and ISO 12800.
Waxing Crescent Moon and Pleiades. This image of The 11% illuminated Waxing Crescent Moon and Pleiades under suburban skies was taken on Tuesday April 1, 2025 at 7:51 PM ET. Equipment was Nikon Coolpix P950 handheld for this single exposure. Focal length 80.3 mm f/5 exposure time 1/10. Resized in GIMP.
Lunar occultation of Mars. This image of Mars just as it was about to “pass” behind the full Moon was taken January 13, 2025 at 9:20 PM ET. Equipment was an iPhone 13 handheld over the eyepiece of a Swarovski Optik Spotting Scope for a single exposure. Focal length 5.1 mm f/1.6 exposure time 1/2,024. Resized in GIMP.
Deep-Sky
This is NGC 7380, the Wizard Nebula. Imaged on 26 and 29 Oct, 2022, with an Atik 383L+ camera and Astrodon filters (5nm Ha, 5nm Oiii, red, green, blue), through an Orion 200mm f/4 Newtonian on an iOptron CEM-60 mount. Exposure times were: 8x 900s Ha, 12x600s Ha, 22x900s Oiii, 20x 120s red, 10x 120s green, 10x 120s blue, for a total of 10h50m. The nebula was processed as an HOO image, with RGB stars.
ZWO ASI2600MM, EFW Filter wheel, Skywatcher Esprit 100ED, Focal Ratio 5.5. Optolong 7nm Ha – 31 × 600s on Sept 26 & 27, Optolong Luminance – 83 × 180s on Sept 25, Optolong Red – 39 × 180s on Sept 22 & 24, Optolong Green – 38 × 180s on Sept 22 & 24, Optolong Blue – 34 × 180s on Sept 22, 23 & 24. Processing Steps: SetiAstro Automatic DBE, BlurX, NoiseX, LinearFit, LRGBCombination, Colorcalibration, SetiAstro StatisticalStretch, NBRGBCombination with a 0.2 Ha Blend.
This is a reflection Nebula located in the constellation Orion. It includes NGC 2071, NGC 2068, & NGC 2064. Capture details: December 14, 2023, ZWO ASI2600MC Pro, Gain=300, Offset=50 , C14Edge HD+Hypterstar, Sywatcher EQ8-Rh Pro, Exposure=30x2min=1 hour. f/1.9, Processed in PixInsight: WBPP script for calibrating light frames with darks & flats, GraXpert for removing gradients, BlurXterminator, SPCC, StarXterminator, Stars Stretched with curves for lum and saturation, Starless image stretched with GHS, curves for saturation, Recombined stars and starless image with ScreenStars script, NoiseXterminator for noise removal, Fixed a couple of blemishes with Photoshop.
The Wizard Nebula, NGC 7380. ZWO 533MC Pro, Skywatcher Evostar 80ED, Optolong L-Enhance Filter, StarShoot Autoguider, PHD2, EQ6R Pro mount. 100 - 300 second subs, a little over 8 hours of data. Pixinsight, Photoshop, Photo Shop Express.