APY14 Competition Dates and New Judge Announced

PRESS RELEASE
Issued 4 January 2022

2022 Competition dates: 10 January 2022 – 4 March 2022
New judge joins the panel: Hannah Lyons, Curator at Royal Museums Greenwich

The Royal Observatory Greenwich, supported by Liberty Specialty Markets and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine, announces the dates for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 14 competition – a global search for the most outstanding images of our cosmos.

In its fourteenth year, the internationally acclaimed competition will open to entrants of all ages and abilities on Monday 10 January 2022, with a grand prize of £10,000. Entrants will have until Friday 4 March 2022 to enter up to ten images into the various categories of the competition via www.rmg.co.uk/astrocomp (entry fees apply, for more information check the competition rules).

This year the 2022 competition also welcomes a new addition to the judging panel, Dr Hannah Lyons, Assistant Curator at Royal Museums Greenwich. Lyons previously worked at the University of Oxford and Tate. Her PhD, completed in collaboration with the V&A, specialised in eighteenth-century women printmakers. Upon joining the competition, Lyons commented: “I am so thrilled be appointed as a judge for the world's biggest astrophotography competition. I’m looking forward to seeing the extraordinary contributions from both professionals and complete beginners.”

All the winners, runners up and highly commended entries from this year, alongside some of the best shortlisted images of Astronomy Photographer of the Year 14 competition, will be displayed in the dedicated gallery space at the National Maritime Museum from September 2022 and will feature 100 breathtaking images.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 14 has nine main categories:

Skyscapes: Landscape and cityscape images of twilight and the night sky featuring the Milky Way, star trails, meteor showers, comets, conjunctions, constellation rises, halos and noctilucent clouds alongside elements of earthly scenery
Aurorae: Photographs featuring the Northern and Southern Lights
People and Space: Photographs of the night sky including people or a human interest element
Our Sun: Solar images including solar eclipses and transits
Our Moon: Lunar images including lunar eclipses and occultation of planets~
Planets, Comets and Asteroids: Everything else in our solar system, including planets and their satellites, comets, asteroids and other forms of zodiacal debris
Stars and Nebulae: Deep space objects within the Milky Way galaxy, including stars, star clusters, supernova remnants, nebulae and other intergalactic phenomena
Galaxies: Deep space objects beyond the Milky Way galaxy, including galaxies, galaxy clusters, and stellar associations

Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year: Pictures taken by budding astronomers under the age of 16 years

There are also two special prizes: The Prize for Best Newcomer is awarded to the best photo by an amateur astrophotographer who has taken up the hobby in the last year and who has not entered an image into the competition before.

The Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation recognizes the best photo processed using pre-existing open source data. Visit rmg.co.uk/imageinnovation to learn more about the Annie Maunder Prize and see step-by-step guides for finding images and image processing.

Entries to the competition must be submitted by 4 March 2022, and the winning images will be showcased in the annual exhibition at the National Maritime Museum on 17 September 2022.

Photographers can enter online by visiting www.rmg.co.uk/astrocomp. Each entrant may submit up to ten images to the competition.

Website: www.rmg.co.uk/astrocomp

Twitter: @RMGreenwich #APY14

Instagram: @royalmuseumsgreenwich #APY14

Facebook: @royalmuseumsgreenwich

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The winners of Royal Observatory’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year 14 will be announced at an online award ceremony on 15 September 2022. The winning photographs will be exhibited in the National Maritime Museum alongside a selection of shortlisted images. General admission will be £10.

2. The overall winner will receive £10,000. Winners of all other categories and the Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year will receive £1,500. The winner of the Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year will also receive a Celestron Astromaster 130EQ MD, kindly donated by Celestron. There are also prizes for runners-up (£500) and highly commended (£250) entries. The Special Prize winners will receive £750. All of the winning entries will receive a one year subscription to BBC Sky at Night Magazine.

3. The Royal Observatory Greenwich is home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian and one of the most important historic scientific sites in the world. Since its founding in 1675, Greenwich has been at the centre of the measurement of time and space, and visitors today can still stand on the historic Prime Meridian line. The Observatory galleries and Peter Harrison Planetarium help unravel the extraordinary phenomena of time, space and astronomy. In 2018 the Royal Observatory acquired the Annie Maunder Astrographic Telescope (AMAT), the first new telescope to be installed in Greenwich in over 60 years, marking a new era for the world-famous site and restoring its status as a working Observatory.

The Royal Observatory Greenwich is part of Royal Museums Greenwich which also incorporates the National Maritime Museum, the Queen’s House and Cutty Sark. This unique collection of museums and heritage buildings, which form a key part of the Maritime Greenwich UNESCO World Heritage Site, welcomes over two and a half million British and international visitors a year and is also a major centre of education and research. The mission of Royal Museums Greenwich is to enrich people’s understanding of the sea, the exploration of space, and Britain's role in world history. For more information visit www.rmg.co.uk

4. Liberty Specialty Markets offers specialty and commercial insurance and reinsurance products across key UK, European, Middle East, US, Bermuda, Asia Pacific & Latin America markets. We provide brokers and insureds with a broad product range through both the Company and Lloyd’s markets and have over 2,000 employees in approximately 60 offices.

At Liberty Mutual, we believe progress happens when people feel secure. By providing protection for the unexpected and delivering it with care, we help people embrace today and confidently pursue tomorrow.

In business since 1912, and headquartered in Boston, Liberty Mutual Insurance is the sixth largest global property and casualty insurer based on 2020 gross written premium. Liberty Mutual Insurance ranks 71st on the Fortune 100 list of largest corporations in the U.S. based on 2020 revenue. As of December 31, 2020, we had $43.8 billion in annual consolidated revenue.

Liberty Mutual Insurance employs over 45,000 people in 29 countries and economies around the world. We offer a wide range of insurance products and services, including personal automobile, homeowners, specialty lines, reinsurance, commercial multiple-peril, workers compensation, commercial automobile, general liability, surety, and commercial property.

5. About BBC Sky at Night Magazine

BBC Sky at Night Magazine is Britain's best-selling astronomy magazine, with a combined print and digital circulation of 20,788 copies a month. skyatnightmagazine.com has 700,000 visits a month and reaches 80,000 organic social media followers through Facebook and Twitter. The magazine is available on Apple Newsstand, Google Play and Zinio as well as in print, and is media partner of the annual Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich. With writing from the world’s leading astronomers and science communicators, BBC Sky at Night Magazine complements one of the world's longest running TV programmes, BBC Four’s The Sky at Night, and is published by Immediate Media Co under licence from BBC Worldwide

6. Royal Observatory Greenwich, in partnership with Collins, will be publishing Astronomy Photographer of the Year, Collection 11 in September 2022. It is the official publication for the Astronomy Photography of the Year competition and will showcase breathtaking images of space and the night sky from the 2022 competition shortlist. Photographs will be accompanied by full details including each photographer’s information, location where photographs were taken and technical specifications.

Last year’s prize winning images are still available to buy: Astronomy Photographer of the Year, Collection 10 / RRP £25.00 / Hardback / Published September 2021 / Royal Museums Greenwich online shop, For further information or to request review copies please contact: Rebecca Jones / Rebecca.Jones@harpercollins.co.uk / DL: 0208 307 4288

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Media interviews:

The Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Modern Astronomy team is dedicated to the public understanding of science and its experts are available to give radio and TV interviews on astronomy - at the historic Observatory site or in the studio.

The Observatory offers a short notice service to media stations looking for comment/ interviews on any aspect of modern astronomy - discussing new discoveries and space missions, telling people what to look for in this month's night sky, or talking about old favourites like black holes, is there life beyond Earth and the origins of the universe.

For further information or images, please contact:

Royal Observatory Greenwich Press Office
Tel: 020 8312 6790/6667/6545
Email: press@rmg.co.uk