Caption: 2022年国际天文学联合会（IAU）OAE天文摄影比赛延时天体图案类别荣誉奖作品。 这幅延时摄影作品拍摄于2020年12月，展示了位于南半球智利的圣佩德罗-德阿塔卡马的夜空。 在第一幅画面中，可以看到我们所在的银河系，以及围绕银河系运行的两个卫星星系——大小麦哲伦云。在画面底部，可以看到明亮的恒星南门二和马腹一（也被称为半人马座α星和β星），它们都位于半人马座。在它们正上方，还可以看到北回归线以南可见的南十字座。它对导航非常重要，因为它的长轴指示着南天极的方向。画面顶端，位于银河右侧的亮白色恒星是位于船底座的老人星，它是夜空中最亮的恒星之一。老人星是全天第二亮的恒星，而南门二则是第三亮的恒星。 在接下来的一些画面中，猎户座带着它明亮的恒星和特有的星群——由三颗排列整齐的亮星组成的腰带，清晰地出现在画面中。因为这段视频是从南半球拍摄的，所以这位来自北半球的希腊英雄似乎正在倒立。 我们还能看到木星和土星紧密相合，甚至可在它们周围看到正在缓缓没入地平线的明显光带，那就是黄道光。一些画面中还闪烁着几颗流星，其中一颗流星的尾迹持续时间很长，并在不断延伸。一轮明月从安第斯山脉的火山后面升起，产生了壮观的阴影和曙暮辉光。在最后一幅画面中，我们看到月亮与相合的木星和土星为伴。
Credit: Robert Barsa/IAU OAE

Caption: Honourable mention in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.   Taken in May 2022 in Teide National Park in Tenerife, Spain, this image shows the arc of the Milky Way galaxy crossing the sky, accompanied by prominent constellations over the professional telescopes located on the mountains of that island. While the telescopes and the people working with them may  ignore the constellations, the photographer managed to catch the Milky Way in such a way that it almost matches the shape of the mountain. The bright star in the top-left side of the image is Vega, one of the brightest stars in the night sky and located in the small constellation Lyra. Being a white star, it is the standard star astrophysicists use to define the colour scale. As it is also a relatively close star, only about 25 light-years away, with a relatively simple name, it frequently appears in modern science fiction, for example in Carl Sagan’s famous novel “Contact”, which was filmed in 1997 with Jodie Foster starring as a radio astronomer. The bright star seen below the galaxy and on the left half of the image is Altair, also one of the brightest stars in the night sky and located in the constellation Aquila. Together with Deneb — a star in the constellation Cygnus (the Swan) that is not visible in this image — Altair and Vega form the Summer Triangle, a characteristic asterism of popular astronomy in the northern hemisphere, where these telescopes are located. On the right side of the image we can see the constellation Scorpius. This is easily identified by its brightest star, Antares, the reddish star in the Scorpion’s heart. Below it, the whole body and tail of the Scorpion can be found and above it the celestial Scorpion's head is represented by three bright bluish stars. Below the tail and above the horizon, the constellation of Ara, the Altar, is half-visible, but like all the stars of Sagittarius in the Milky Way and the much fainter ones in Hercules and Ophiuchus above it, these constellations are more difficult to pinpoint in this photograph full of stars. The head of Ophiuchus is the relatively bright star in the middle between Vega and Antares. In addition to the huge size of this constellation, it is also important because it is the thirteenth one of the Zodiac, and the Sun spends roughly three weeks in Ophiuchus, after only five days in Scorpius. Furthermore, Ophiuchus represents the model for the mythological best doctor in the world, called Asklepios in Greek mythology, and Aesculab in Latin. His constellation praises all people working in medical professions, including nurses, pharmacists and doctors.
Credit: Curd-Christian Tengeler/IAU OAE

Caption: Winner in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.   Taken from La Palma, Canary Islands, in May 2022, this image captures the Zodiacal light, three prominent constellations (Gemini, Cancer and Auriga), and the Beehive Cluster, which appears as a small nebulosity to the unaided eye under dark skies. The Zodiacal light is a triangular white glow stretching along the ecliptic that is visible here at the western horizon shortly after sunset.The Canary Islands were considered the westernmost land of the inhabited world by the ancient Greeks. The dim shimmer in the Zodiac might have inspired the Greek philosopher Plato to think that the Sun leaves a trace of sunny glitter in its wake, and that the current path of the Sun, the ecliptic, has not always been its path. Plato believed that the Milky Way was a former path of the Sun and that its bright clouds are sparks of the Sun’s glory left behind. Today, we know that these two phenomena in the sky have different causes; while the Zodiacal light is really caused by reflection of sunlight from very tiny dust particles in the plane of the ecliptic, the Milky Way consists of billions of stars. The Zodiacal light is a smooth cone of light from the horizon upwards, while the Milky Way crosses the whole sky and also includes dark clouds. The Zodiac is described by Indigenous Australians as the Dreaming Road, and the Zodiacal light is a celestial rope connecting Venus to the Sun. The two bright stars in the top-left of the image are Castor (the bluish star) and Pollux (the whitish star), which are part of the constellation Gemini, the Twins. The two bright stars towards the bottom-right of the image are Menkalinan (the dimmer one) and Capella (the brighter one), which are part of the constellation Auriga, the Charioteer. The Wergaia people of Western Victoria in Australia see Castor and Pollux as brothers who hunt the kangaroo Purra in their stories. This has coincidental similarities to the Babylonian story, where they are considered two strong gods of the Netherworld, depicted with weapons. The Greco-Roman myth of the twins describes them as two brothers who accompanied the first ocean sailor, Jason, on voyages with the The Ship, Argo. A similar myth exists in the Blackfoot traditions of the First Nations people of Canada and the USA, where they are considered the two brothers Ashes Chief and Struck-behind.
Credit: Amirreza Kamkar/IAU OAE