Caption: 2021 年国际天文学联合会 OAE 天文摄影比赛流星雨类第三名。 地球绕太阳运行时，可能会穿过彗星或小行星（罕见）留下的碎片的轨迹。这些碎片高速进入大气层，与大气层摩擦后在天空中燃烧，形成美丽的轨迹。这张图片拍摄的是双子座流星雨，因辐射点位于双子座而得名。组成流星雨的粒子以相似的速度平行移动，这就产生了一种透视效果，就好像流星雨从天空中的一个点辐射出来，这就是所谓的辐射点。这张于 2020 年 12 月在中国拍摄的照片清晰地展示了这种透视效果。这是一个非常活跃的流星雨，最近每小时可以看到一百多颗。双子座流星雨是少数几个与彗星无关的流星雨之一，它与一颗小行星--3200 Phaeton 有关，这颗小行星可能是一颗失去了所有挥发性物质的彗星。这张图片展示了双子座流星雨中可以观测到的大量流星，通常发生在每年 12 月。这张图片还显示了夜空中最显眼的星座之一--猎户座，猎户座腰带上成斜线的三颗星和橘红色的参宿四很容易就能看到。望远镜的正上方有一个亮点，那就是天狼星，夜空中最亮的恒星，也是大犬座的一部分。2 点钟方向的模糊蓝斑是昴星团。
Credit: Hao Yin/IAU OAE

Caption: 2021 年国际天文学联合会 OAE 天文摄影比赛流星雨类第二名。 当彗星或极少数情况下小行星产生的碎片高速进入地球大气层时，就会发生流星雨，它们是碎片与大气层摩擦后在天空中留下的美丽轨迹。这张于2020 年在斯洛伐克拍摄的全景天空图像生动地展示了英仙座流星雨，让人可以清晰地看到流星在天空各处划过。这个流星雨之所以被命名为英仙座流星雨，是因为它的辐射点（流星被误认为是从天空中某一点发射的）位于英仙座。这是一个非常活跃的流星雨，也是一个非常受欢迎的天文现象，从7月中旬到8月中旬都可以观测到，这段时间是此流星雨活动的高峰期。英仙座流星雨与彗星109P/Swift-Tuttle有关，因为地球绕太阳运行的轨道会穿过这颗彗星留下的碎片。这种图像非常适合用于天文馆的穹顶投影，可以完美地展示银河系——我们的家园星系。
Credit: Tomáš Slovinský/IAU OAE

Caption: 2021 年国际天文学联合会 OAE 天文摄影比赛流星雨类第一名。 地球在围绕太阳的轨道上运行，当它穿过彗星接近太阳留下的碎片轨迹时，就会发生流星雨。当地球穿过这些碎片（小沙粒大小）时，它们高速地沿着平行轨迹进入大气层，完全燃烧，在天空中留下美丽的轨迹（条纹）。这些条纹可以一眨眼间出现和消失，也可以持续更长时间。在极少数情况下，碎片来源于小行星，如双子座流星雨，照片展示的就是 2017 年在中国的天空捕捉到的许多碎片条纹。由于相对运动和视角，流星雨似乎来自一个点，即所谓的辐射点，就像照片展示的那样。这就好比在无风的雨天开车，从前窗望出去，雨水似乎是直接冲着车窗来的，而实际上雨水是垂直落下的。
Credit: Dai Jianfeng/IAU OAE

Caption: Honourable mention in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.   Taken from Narrabri, Australia, in April 2014, this photograph shows a meteor next to the Large Magellanic Cloud and the reflection of all this in the water. The Magellanic Clouds are named after the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who made the first maps of the southern part of South America in the early 16th century but did not survive his expedition voyage. His shipmates called the two nebulae after him, and it was only in the 20th century that astronomy research discovered that they are in fact dwarf galaxies accompanying our own. In the 18th century, the French mathematician J-N. Lacaille, who lived in South Africa for some years in order to draw maps of the sky and the land, invented some new constellations. He measured the positions of some faint stars and listed them in his star catalogue, but did not try to overlay beautiful drawings of real-world objects on the star patterns, so he could name them however he wanted. He was based in the trade station that is now the city of Cape Town and, from this bay, Table Mountain is visible. Lacaille learned from the navigators that they used the clouds around this mountain to predict whether or not the wind would blow in the correct direction and allow for sailing. Normally, there is a huge white cloud at the top of Table Mountain, so Lacaille considered the larger one of the two dwarf galaxies not a “Magellanic Cloud”, but the cloud at Table Mountain. Consequently, he invented the constellation “Mensa”, Table Mountain, in the small area of faint stars directly attached to this dwarf galaxy.
Credit: Fabrizio Melandri/IAU OAE

Caption: 2022 年国际天文学联合会 OAE 天体摄影竞赛 "延时天体图案 "类别荣誉奖。 这幅延时摄影作品是 2020 年 8 月在斯洛伐克拍摄的。通过在部分画面中固定天空与地球自转的相对运动，作为观众的我们可以体验到不同的视角。 银河系，我们的家园星系，在整段视频中清晰可见。银河附近明亮的天体是木星和土星，它们靠得很近，其中木星更亮。 这段视频还展示了业余天文学家用望远镜对准天空观测英仙座流星雨的互动过程。天文观测的一个遗憾是，有时云层会突然遮住整个天空。云雾出现的主要原因是雨后湿度较大。 天空中的大部分亮线都是由卫星造成的，但其中有些出现的时间很短，也不是很明显，它们是流星，因为这段视频是在英仙座流星雨高峰期前后拍摄的。
Credit: Robert Barsa/IAU OAE

Caption: Winner in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.   Taken in the early hours of 24 April 2022, this image captures the sky of Yunnan Province, China, with a reflection on Lake Nian. The Milky Way is visible on the left side, while whitish Earth clouds are visible on the right. A Lyrid meteor crosses the sky along the Milky Way, its tail pointing back toward the shower's radiant in the constellation Lyra, which lies outside the image above the upper edge. The natural colours of the meteor are impressively clear. A few constellations are also visible. In the top left corner we can recognise the small constellation of the Dolphin, in which five brightest stars comprise the asterism. This asterism forms the head-part of the larger Greek constellation of the Dolphin and was considered the Dolphin since Roman times, when Ptolemy formed the new constellation of Equuleus in the southern part of the original figure. In mediaeval China, this asterism was considered the Good and the Rotten Gourd, the good one being formed by the brighter rhombus on the top and the rotten one made of faint stars in the tail of the Roman dolphin. The bright star to the right of the Dolphin and at the top of the image is Altair, the brightest star in the constellation Aquila. In Chinese uranology, Altair, together with some adjacent areas, forms the constellation of the Drum at the River. However, in Chinese folklore, the bright star stands for a boy in love with a girl, who is represented by the bright star Vega (in Lyra) on the other side of a huge celestial stream, the Milky Way. Vega is not visible in this image but the Lyrid meteor is like a teardrop of the unlucky girl who cannot reach her lover. In the upper right of the image, the constellation Scorpius shines with its bright reddish star Antares. With some of its neighbouring stars, it was regarded in China as the asterism of The Heart, which was also one of the Lunar Mansions. It was considered the heart of the Azure Dragon, the super-constellation of spring, in ancient China. Scorpius and Sagittarius, in the middle of the image, contain the brightest clouds of the Milky Way, the Galactic Centre, which also has clearly visible dark clouds in front of the bright ones. There is no classical Greco-Roman constellation between Aquila and Scorpius, but in the 17th century, two Polish astronomers, the couple Jan and Elizabeta Hevelius, named this area of bright clouds in the Milky Way Scutum, the Shield, in memory of a Polish king. In China, however, this area directly outside the super-constellation (or heavenly enclosure) of the Celestial Market Place was seen as depicting Market Officers.
Credit: Jianfeng Dai/IAU OAE

Caption: 这张照片于2022年12月13日用智能手机拍摄，记录下了云南蓝月谷上空一颗双子座流星划过夜空的瞬间，以玉龙雪山的宁静景致为背景，呈现出令人屏息的美景。双子座流星雨因其耀眼的亮度和鲜艳的色彩而闻名，是最壮观的流星雨之一，其起源于小行星3200法厄同。每年，当地球穿越法厄同的碎片轨迹时，尘埃和岩石碎片在大气层中气化，形成了这一壮丽的双子座流星雨。在这幅令人惊叹的夜空影像中，双子座的双星（北河二和北河三）被左侧树木的剪影遮挡。静谧湖面映照出猎户座的群星，猎户座星座从画面中央下方逐渐升起，而红色的火星依然明亮，成为画面中最耀眼的天体灯塔。这一切发生在月出之前，为这一幕增添了更多的神秘和壮丽。
Credit: 戴建峰/国际天文学联合会教育办公室 (CC BY 4.0)