The 2025 Astronomy Photographer of the Year People's Choice Award has been won by Benjamin Barakat's 'Dragon Tree Trails', a breathtaking image of a lone Dragon's Blood tree surrounded by star trails. This image, captured in Firmihin Forest, Hidaybu District, Socotra, Yemen, showcases the beauty of the night sky and the apparent movement of stars as Earth rotates on its axis. Barakat's technique of stacking 300 individual exposures and underexposing slightly with a low ISO allowed him to capture the vibrant trails while maintaining shadow details in post-processing. This image truly exemplifies the magic of astrophotography.
In second place, Steeve Body's 'The Vela Supernova Remnant' presents a cosmic cloud, or nebula, known as the Vela supernova remnant. This high-resolution image, captured in natural color from Fisher, South Australia, offers a deep and detailed view of the region. Body's use of narrowband and color filters enhances the natural appearance of the glowing gases, revealing faint structures that would otherwise remain hidden. The image provides an unprecedented look at the intricate patterns left behind by a cosmic explosion, visible only from the southern hemisphere under some of the darkest skies in the world.
Rounding out the top three is Peter Greig's 'Raining Down On Dunstanburgh Castle', an aurora display captured over Embleton Bay, Alnwick, Northumberland, UK. Greig's unique approach involved moving to the castle's north side and pointing his camera south-east to frame the aurora above the castle from a rare perspective. Despite using a wide-angle lens, he had to flip his camera into landscape orientation and shoot three images to create a vertorama, or vertical panorama, to capture the entire scene.
These images, along with the top entries from the 2026 competition, will be exhibited at the National Maritime Museum in London, UK, in September 2026. The Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, run by Royal Museums Greenwich in London, UK, is the world's largest astrophotography competition, attracting hundreds of images from entrants worldwide each year. The People's Choice Award, in particular, showcases the best images as voted by members of the public, highlighting the captivating beauty of the night sky and the artistry of astrophotography.
