Photographing the Milky Way requires a great deal of planning, and being able to both gaze at it in a dark sky and capture it with a camera using astrophotography techniques is an emotion that is difficult to describe.
Any great photograph of the Milky Way always goes beyond technical steps; the photographer’s mind is full of ideas that materialize when the long-awaited photograph arrives. That’s what this contest is about, to capture the most amazing moments whose protagonist is the Milky Way. We enter a journey that will take us from the American Wild West to the unknown landscapes of Antarctica, passing through spectacular deserts, glaciers, mountains, beaches … always with the Milky Way shining in the sky.
Fortunately, the night sky makes a fabulous canvas for photography. And every year, the Milky Way Photographer of the Year contest tries to rescue the best images of the Milky Way, paying tribute to our galaxy, bringing out the best of it.
Among those selected for 2020, the Milky Way has been captured from all corners of the world, with contrasts of bright stars and snow, sand, sea or stone. Among the most prominent are Michael Goh’s Nightmare, which was captured at Lake Dumbleyung in Western Australia in which dead trees in the dry salt bed stretch toward the stars like tentacles, while the fisheye lens stretches them out. doubles in horrors worthy of the writer HP Lovecraft.
The annual competition is run by Dan Zafra, a passionate travel photographer specializing in landscape photography and night sky photography and head of the Capture the Atlas website.
Among the entries that have been submitted this year are snapshots from Namibia, New Zealand, Chile, Spain, the United States, Australia and even Antarctica.
“Although the Milky Way can be photographed throughout the year, the Galactic Center, which is the core of the Milky Way and the area of most interest, is only visible during what is commonly known as” Milky Way season . ” This season runs from the end of March to the beginning of October in most of our planet and the peak with the most hours of visibility takes place in June “, they explain in the contest.
