“Aperture” Indian Astrophotographer of the year 2024: Results and Yearbook

We are happy to announce the results of “Aperture” Indian Astrophotographer of the Year 2024. The judges had a tough time to select these images out of a pool of amazing space photographs. Congratulations to all the winning and shortlisted photographers! Check the IAPY 2024 Yearbook below to enjoy the images. You can also check the Result Announcement Video on Youtube and listen to the winners speak.

About the Competition:

Astronomads Bangla brings to you the largest astrophotography competition in India, “Aperture” Indian Astrophotographer of the Year 2024. In its 3rd edition, the competition aims to promote astrophotography in India and recognize the best instances of astrophotography captured by Indians. Through the competition, we explore the vastness of the universe and the beauty of the night sky.

Important Dates:

Submission Opens: 21^st September 2024

Submission Closes: 27^th October 2024

Result Declaration: 22^nd December 2024

Exhibition: Beginning in last week of December 2024

Categories:

Submissions to the competition can be made in any of the following categories. This year, there are 3 main categories and 1 special category.

Main Categories

• Nightscape: Photographs of landscape, seascape, cityscape along with night sky with or without human element.
• Deep Sky: Photographs of nebulae, galaxy, stars, star clusters or any other objects lying beyond solar system.
• Solar System: Photographs of sun, moon, planets, comets, ISS or any other objects lying within solar system.

Special Categories

• Best Mobile Astrophotographer: Photographs taken with mobile phone as the imaging tool. This includes photographs taken with just mobile phone, mobile phone attached to a telescope or lenses.

How to Enter:

All entries are to be submitted electronically via this Google Form. You are allowed to change/modify your images and other personal and image details till submission closes on 27th October 2024.

Read the rules and regulations below for entering your images.

For any queries regarding your entries, contact us here: indianastrophotocomp@gmail.com

Rules and Regulations:

• The contest is open to all Indian Nationals residing in India, NRIs (Non-residential Indians) and OCI (Overseas Citizens of India).
• A maximum of 10 images can be entered by a participant, which can be submitted to a single category or distributed among multiple categories.
• The copyright of the entered images must be held by the participant. In case of collaborative images, it is the responsibility of the participant to inform the other collaborator(s).
• Images can be entered in JPG or PNG The maximum size of the images must not exceed 10MB and at least 72 DPI.
• An image cannot be entered into multiple categories, including the special categories.
• No watermark, border or logo on the image is permitted.
• Images captured with own setup or remote setup can be entered.
• At the time of judging, participants might be asked additional questions and might be asked to submit RAW images, if required.
• Shortlisted participants might be asked to submit a high-resolution copy of the shortlisted image for exhibition purpose.
• Images submitted to other contests can be entered. However, images submitted to the previous editions of this contest cannot be entered.
• Violation of any of the above rules may result into the cancellation of participation or prizes.
• Jury’s and organizer’s decision will be deemed as final.
• See the terms & conditions below for more details.

Prizes:

Shortlisted Entries

A total of 30 images will be shortlisted:

• Nightscape: 9 images
• Deep Sky: 9 images
• Solar System: 9 images
• Best Mobile Astrophotographer: 3 images

All shortlisted images will be exhibited in the “Lights of Cosmos” exhibition to be held at M. P. Birla Planetarium, Kolkata in the last week of December 2024.

All the shortlisted images will be included in the IAPY 2024 Yearbook which will be published online on the day of result declaration on 22^nd December 2024.

Shortlisted participants will receive a soft copy of a Certificate.

Winners

All winning images will be exhibited in the “Lights of Cosmos” exhibition to be held at M. P. Birla Planetarium, Kolkata in the last week of December 2024.

All the winning images will be included in the IAPY 2024 Yearbook which will be published online on the day of result declaration on 22nd December 2024.

Our Judges:

	Ajay Talwar: Ajay has been photographing the night skies for several decades. When he started off dabbling in this passion, he was one of the few in India. www.ajaytalwar.com
	Dorje Angchuk: Dorje is the Engineer-in-Chief of Indian Astronomical Observatory at Hanle, Ladakh. He started his astrophotography journey in 2010 and loves to showcase the beautiful night-scape of Ladakh. Instagram: Dorje Angchuk (@dorje_nyrchung)
	Petr Horálek: Petr is a Czech awarded astrophotographer, and outreach astronomer working at the Institute of Physics in Opava. He is also ESO and NOIRLab photo ambassador, more than 40 images from him were published as NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day, and a small asteroid 6822 is named after him. https://www.petrhoralek.com/#
	Yann Sainty: Yann fell in love with astrophotography 4 years ago and since then he has been lucky enough to share this passion with talented people who have helped him progress and perfect my techniques. For him, astrophotography is about sharing, both in terms of knowledge and the images themselves. https://www.astrobin.com/users/yann_sainty

IAPY 2023: Winners & Shortlisted Images

Get inspired from the winning & shortlisted images of the previous edition of “Aperture” Indian Astrophotographer of the Year Competition.

Organizers:

Astronomads Bangla is a group of astrophotography enthusiasts working towards the popularization of astrophotography in India. The group consists of 4 members: Basudeb Chakrabarti, Goutam Dey, Samit Saha, and Soumyadeep Mukherjee.

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Our Associate:

Inaugurated in 1962 the M. P. Birla Planetarium was the first public planetarium in India. It is also one of the largest in the world in terms of its seating capacity. The planetarium has designed and presented more than 300 astronomical projects dealing with various aspects of astronomy, astrophysics, celestial and space sciences.

		Aperture Telescopes is the first Indian company to serve the Amateur Astronomers by manufacturing Large Dobsonian Telescopes of portable truss tube design. Till now, no company has provided large portable telescopes up to 20-inches for the fast growing hobby of Astronomy in India. It is a common complaint of the amateur astronomers that quality telescopes of large sizes are not available in India, at a reasonable cost. Now you can buy high quality, large telescopes from our company, right here in India. What’s more, You do not have to wait for weeks or months to receive your telescope after ordering. You can have it in a matter of days at your doorstep. Aperture Telescopes believes in selling a quality product, weather proof & built to last. The best materials are located and used in our products. We have full confidence in our products and you will have it too once you have used it. They endeavours to provide innovative products which are not been available in India. Even our small products have been through a lot of thought process. Our products are a pleasure to use. Aperture Telescopes is one of the very few manufacturer of telescopes in India. Most companies selling telescopes in India are trading in imported telescopes and are not able to provide even the smallest of after sales support or services. If a problem crops up in your telescopes after purchasing, it’s your problem. Since we are the manufacturers and right here in India, you can expect many years of support, should any problem occur in your telescopes. If a problem crops up in an Aperture Telescope, it’s our problem.
		Optolong Optics Co.,Ltd. is the brand owner of Optolong who is the joint of industry and trade. Optolong has become an integrated enterprise not only specialized in R&D, but also good at manufacturing astronomy filters and fluorescence filters and pushing them into the market.
		Nikon is is a Japanese optics and photographic equipment manufacturer. Nikon’s products include cameras, camera lenses, binoculars etc. Nikon supports society and changes the future with its opto-electronics and precision technologies.

Terms and Conditions:

• By entering your image to the Indian Astrophotographer of the Year competition (hereafter, competition) you are deemed to have accepted the above rules and regulations and the terms and conditions.
• Astronomads Bangla (hereafter, organizers) holds the right to take the final decision in case of any discrepancy.
• Organizers hold the right to share the images in social media, website, media channels and other platforms (both online and offline) in order to promote the competition and other purposes. The copyright of the image remains with the original author.
• Organizers will try their best to credit the author in all the places where images have been used. In case of missing credits, authors are requested to contact the organizers with details.
• Personal data (name, age, address, contact number, e-mail id etc.) will be collected at the time of image submission. These information may be shared with media partners, sponsors and media for promotional and other purposes.
• By submitting your images, you will be added to the organizers’ email list and will receive future updates about events, competitions etc.
• The maximum number of prize a participant can win (first, second or third) in a category is one. In case of multiple prizes, any one of the images (preferably the lower ranked image) will be demoted to the shortlist. This is to ensure maximum number of participants winning prizes.
• Participants have to bear shipping charges and import duty of prizes, wherever applicable. The winners will be contacted beforehand and only after successful payment, the prizes will be released.
• Prizes can only be delivered within India. Winners residing outside India are requested to get in touch with the organizers for more details.
• No submissions will be entertained before or after the mentioned submission period.
• Organizers hold the right the shorten or extend the submission period.
• Participants cannot contact any of the judges in relation to their entries at any time. Violation of this condition will lead to the cancellation of participation to the competition.
• Organizers will not be responsible for any false information, incorrect description provided by the participants.
• Entries submitted via any other platform other than the official Google form will not be considered as a part of the competition.
• No member of the organizing committee can participate in the competition.

Contact Us:

For any queries related to the contest, please send us an e-mail here:

indianastrophotocomp@gmail.com

For any other queries, sponsorship, promotion (media), please get in touch with us here:

astronomads.bangla2020@gmail.com