ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 18 Shortlists: 4,000 Entries, Zero Bad Images

Every year, when the Astronomy Photographer of the Year shortlists are announced, I end up losing twenty minutes just staring at images in awe. The 2026 edition is not an exception.

Royal Observatory Greenwich has revealed the shortlisted images for ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 18. Nearly 4,000 entries came in from 66 countries, covering everything from solar prominences shaped like acacia trees to a 750-megapixel Milky Way mosaic that almost didn’t survive its own making.

Shortlist Highlights

The stories behind the images are as inspiring as the images themselves. James McBeath from the UK spent hours in a Leeds park tracking last year’s partial solar eclipse through fast-moving clouds. He walked away with a shot named Moody Partial Solar Eclipse that looks quite eerie.

Takanobu Kurosaki from Japan captured cherry blossom trees, a lunar halo, and a snow-capped mountain all in a single frame at the Funakawa River. He titled it Setsu-getsu-ka, a Japanese expression for snow, moon, and flowers. It’s not a composite shot, by the way, it’s a single exposure. Knowing that the blossoms last about ten days makes the timing and the image remarkable.

On the aurora front, Jennifer Rogers from the UK spotted the shape of an eagle in a pulsing aurora display over the Lofoten Islands in Norway. Thankfully, she captured it before it vanished forever.

Yifan Cao from China witnessed a full-sky outburst of green, red, and purple above Goðafoss Waterfall in Iceland. This shot made the shortlist for the Best Newcomer prize – not bad for a first entry. And in the ZWO Young Astronomy Photographer category, 14-year-old 与晨 林 from Xiamen, China, produced a high-resolution H-alpha image of the Sun’s chromosphere from home that reveals sunspots, filaments, and prominences in striking detail.

As I’ve been into alternative printing for a while now, I was happy to see a 182-day solargraph among the shortlists. In the Annie Maunder Open Category, Ksawery Wrobel made it to the shortlist with a photo made with a homemade pinhole camera and photosensitive paper. Each bright streak you see here is a single day of sunlight.

Last but not least, Chuhong Yu and Zuoming Wang took a deep-field image of the Andromeda Galaxy. In numbers, this photo took over 111 hours of total exposure across multiple months!

Key Dates and Exhibition

The nine category winners, two special prize winners, and the overall winner will be announced on Thursday, September 17, 2026. The winning and shortlisted images go on exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in London from Friday, September 18. The official book, published by Collins in association with Royal Museums Greenwich, will be available on-site and at rmg.co.uk from the same date, then in bookstores from 2 October.

The exhibition is definitely worth a visit if you’re anywhere near London. The full shortlist is on the contest website, so let’s enjoy those images until the winners are announced. I can’t wait!

More ZWO Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2026 Shortlists

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