The David Malin Award winners have been announced! This is “Hadley Rille” by Peter Ward. This won the Solar System category.

We’re not travelling as much as we were last year. For obvious reasons.

But we’re going to take you on an adventure. The thing is, we’re not taking you somewhere local. We’re going to take you to the stars!

Every year, the best of the best of astrophotography enter the Central West Astronomical Society Astrophotography Awards. Otherwise known as the David Malin Awards. And they’re named as such because world-renowned astrophotographer David Malin judges the entries.

He judges the pictures to see if they capture the beauty of the sky and show astronomy in an aesthetically pleasing way.

This year’s competition had 253 stellar entries! And that’s a new record for the competition! The competition had eight categories, including Smartphone Astrophotography and Scientific Animation.

This year’s winners will have a permanent exhibition at our Parkes radio telescope. It will run for a year from this September.

Here are some of the absolutely out of this world shots.

Nightscapes Winner and Overall Winner: ‘Tranquillity Base’ by Mark Polsen.

Wide-Field Winner: ‘The Gum Nebula’ by Troy Casswell.

Smartphone Astrophotography Winner: ‘Smartphone Galactic’ by Alex Cherney.

Deep Sky Winner: ‘The Dragon strikes from the darkness (NGC 6188)’ by Jon Ground.

Junior Winner: ‘Canopus Spectra’ by Blake Iscaro.