Caption: Honourable mention in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.   Taken in November 2019 from the Doi Inthanon National Park, Chiang Mai, Thailand, this image captures the notable northern constellation Cassiopeia, in the shape of the letter M. Although the official constellation name is the Latinised version of the name of queen “Kasseipeia” from Greek mythology, these five bright stars were considered a constellation in many cultures around the world and they are associated with diverse stories. In Thailand, for example, the constellation represents a Bat, while in Hawaiian culture it is called 'Iwa Keli'i, the chief frigate bird. For the Navajo in North America, the bright stars are the central part of the celestial mother (of all stars and humans) revolving around the celestial pole together with her husband, the celestial father (of all stars and humans) seen in the constellation of Ursa Major. For the Maya it was part of the huge constellation of the Hole-Backed Caiman, and for the Inuit a Lamp Stand and a Blubber Container. In ancient China, the bottom-left star was associated with the mythological general Wangliang who drove four horses, represented by the two bright and two fainter stars of the M’s next stroke (from upper-left to lower-middle). The remaining two bright stars and a couple of the other fainter ones are considered a Flying Corridor, a sort of highway, next to the Emperor’s Forbidden Palace that is located at the northern polar region. On the island of Tonga in the South Pacific, this asterism is considered the Wing of Tafahi and it is not clear if this refers to the shape of the island of Tafahi, or if it is based on an error and originally referred to a wing of the Polynesian hero Tafaki. The various colours of the stars indicate their temperatures, with redder stars being relatively cooler on their surface than blue and white stars.
Credit: Thanakrit Santikunaporn/IAU OAE

Caption: Winner in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.   This image, taken from the Avenue of Baobabs, Morondava, Madagascar, in July 2017, shows the majestic band of the Milky Way, our home galaxy, together with a rich collection of constellations and asterisms: Crux, Centaurus, Scorpius, Sagittarius and the Teapot asterism. Towards the bottom left of the image we can see the Southern Cross and the pointer stars Alpha (the brighter of the two) and Beta Centauri, which help to distinguish it from similar-looking configurations. Some cultures in Africa associate the Southern Cross with a giraffe, while others associate the constellations with a pride of lions or even with the Tree of Life. Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius, is the orange-red star straight up from the middle baobab tree. To the Pokomo people from southwestern Kenya, Africa, the Milky Way is associated with the smoke emanating from a campfire lit by ancient people. The various people in South Africa, in contrast, have different star tales; the Khoikhoi from the region around Cape Town explained the colours of the red and white stars as red and white roots that were roasted on a fire and thrown towards the sky together with the ashes of the fire. The Xhosa from further east consider the Milky Way the raised bristle of a huge angry dog, while the Zulu from near Johannesburg interpret it as a stream of spears of their strongest warriors. Polynesian people, who were adept seafarers and navigators, see the constellation Scorpius as a fish hook, and refer to it as the demigod Maui’s Fish Hook. For the Djab Wurrung and the Jardwadjali people, the Southern Cross is part of a Dreamtime Story involving Tchingal, the Bram-bram-bult brothers (the pointer stars), their mother Druk (Delta Crux), and Bunya, the hunter who gets changed into a possum (Gacrux, red star at the top of the Southern Cross). In this image, the planets Saturn (the bright point above Antares) and Jupiter (the bright point at the bottom-right of the image close to the trunk of the baobab tree) are visible. Indigenous cultures have various stories associated with the planets, for example Kamilaroi and Wailan people associate Saturn with wunygal, a small bird. The Boorong people of Western Victoria associate Jupiter with Ginabongbearp, the chief of the old spirits (Nurrumbunguttias), who takes the totemic form of the sulphur-crested white cockatoo.
Credit: Amirreza Kamkar/IAU OAE

Caption: Winner in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.   This image, taken in April 2022, shows the sky over a plantation field around a century-old watchtower guarding a village in the province of Guangdong, China. Throughout the ages, the sky has been used as a tool for navigation and also as a calendar. By watching the apparent movement of the stars, it is possible to follow the passing of time, thereby understanding the change of the seasons which in turn helps to plan out the best timings of agricultural work. The most prominent constellations in this image are Orion and Canis Major, the Great Dog. Commonly associated with a giant hunter in Greek mythology, Orion is followed by his hound in the shape of the constellation Canis Major. In China, the seven bright stars of the constellation Orion are paradoxically called Three Stars (Shen) and this is one of the 28 Lunar Mansions. The Babylonian pre-zodiac, the so-called “Path of the Moon”, had 17 constellations and included Orion (therein named “True Shepherd of the Heavens”). This is not really surprising because, even in the system of the 88 modern constellations, the Moon sometimes stands in the constellation Orion. The modern constellation boundaries were defined in the 1920s in such a way that the area of Orion ends a half degree south of the ecliptic, in order to avoid the Sun entering it. Still, the Moon and the planets do occasionally. Therefore, Orion is part of the Zodiac (a stripe 5 to 10 degrees around the ecliptic), part of the path of the Moon and, of course, also used by many cultural calendars all over the world. Sirius, the bright star in the left half of the photograph, is the brightest star in the night sky, and has been used by many indigenous cultures to determine their calendars; the Egyptians awaited the Nile flood with Sirius’s heliacal rise, while the Romans connected its reappearance after its invisibility in daylight with the hottest summer time. In Old China, Sirius was considered a single-star asterism called The Wolf. The adjacent area was called The Market for Soldiers and the area in the southern part of Canis Major was imagined as the Bow with an Arrow. The reddish bright star in the top right corner is Betelgeuse, a red supergiant and one of the largest stars that can be seen with the naked eye. Orion’s Great Nebula below Orion’s Belt should be mentioned, but also the fainter huge red arc that is called Barnard’s Loop is clearly shown in this photograph. This galactic nebula and the circular red nebula around Orion’s not-so-bright head are both parts of star-forming regions, while the red nebula to the upper left of Orion is the Rosette Nebula in the unrecognisable constellation of Monoceros.
Credit: Likai Lin/IAU OAE

Caption: Winner in the 2022 IAU OAE Astrophotography Contest, category Still images of celestial patterns.   The Milky Way and several astronomical objects are seen in this image taken from the southern hemisphere, in Anglers Reach, Australia, in April 2022. On the bottom-left side we can identify the constellation Scorpius with its brightest star, Antares, the reddish spot just above the arc. Some prominent but small southern constellations can also be seen: the dominating bright stars in the middle-left of the image in the Milky Way are the four bright stars of Crux (the Southern Cross) and to its left the two pointer stars, alpha and beta Centauri. Crux points towards the southern celestial pole, which is not marked by a bright star, and The pointer stars point towards Crux, distinguishing it from the asterism of the False Cross in the constellation Argo. Crux features on the national flags of Australia, Brazil, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and New Zealand. As Crux lies in the brightest parts of the Milky Way, the dark cloud of the famous Coalsack Nebula is prominent next to the bright stars. It forms one of the dark constellations in South American, South African and Australian indigenous cultures. The huge Australian dark constellation of the Emu is almost completely above the horizon in this image, stretching from its head in the Coal Sack to the horizon. In Greek antiquity, the stars of Crux also belonged to the constellation Centaurus, a hybrid creature with a human torso and head attached to a horse body with four legs. The Greek centaur represents Chiron, the wise teacher of all Greek heroes. Its brightest star is Rigil Kentaurus (Alpha Centauri), the front hoof of the centaur. Just below it, we find the small constellation Triangulum Australe. The triple star system of Alpha Centauri is our Sun’s nearest stellar neighbour. Along the Milky Way in the middle-right of the picture we find the huge constellation Argo, the Ship. The smaller ancient constellation Argo was extended by Dutch navigators around 1600, and the number of stars in this constellation was then so big that the 18th-century French mathematician Lacaille needed to introduce subtitles for Argo in his star catalogue. In doing so, he invented the constellations Puppis, Carina and Vela. In Carina, the Keel of the ship, this reddish photograph clearly displays the Carina Nebula. At the right edge of the image we can spot the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius, while the second brightest star, Canopus, the rudder of Argo, the Ship, dominates the area under the arch of the Milky Way. Also below the Milky Way arc, we can see the Large Magellanic Cloud and the Small Magellanic Cloud, which are small satellite galaxies of our own Galaxy.
Credit: Lucy Yunxi Hu/IAU OAE

Caption: 2022 年国际天文学联合会 OAE 天体摄影比赛“天体图案静态图像”类获奖作品。 这张拍摄于2021年12月的照片，来自埃及开罗的科塔米亚天文台（Kottamia Astronomical Observatory），展示了北非最大望远镜上方的北半球冬季星空和其中的一些著名星座。 照片展示了猎户座（位于照片中间的显眼位置），其腰带向上指向金牛座的毕宿五（Aldebaran），向下指向大犬座的天狼星（Sirius）。毕宿五是一颗略微发红的恒星，我们可以看到它位于疏散星团毕星团（照片右上角）的前方，这是金牛座（公牛）脸部的象征。而那颗明亮的白色恒星是天狼星，夜空中最亮的恒星。它的希腊名字（Seirios）的意思是 "燃烧者"，可以理解为 "最亮的"。 猎户座在世界各地不同的文化中都有象征意义。在古埃及宗教中，猎户座也与一位男性神祇相关联，即奥西里斯（Osiris）。相传，奥西里斯被他妒忌的兄弟赛特（Seth）杀害，赛特肢解了尸体，将碎片散布各地。幸运的是，奥西里斯的姐妹兼妻子阿塞特（Aset，希腊语名：Isis）是最强大的女巫和守护母神。她收集了这些身体碎片，将它们重新组合在一起，为奥西里斯重新注入了生命。从照片底部明亮的天狼星周围的星座图案中可以看到阿塞特。天狼星（及邻近区域）在埃及语中被称为“Sopdet”（希腊语：Sothis）。天狼星在夏季的晨昏升起预示着埃及的新年。 向北看，我们可以发现一颗淡蓝色的恒星。这是井宿三（Alhena），它是黄道十二宫双子座脚下的恒星之一，而双子座那两颗明亮的“头部”星星则位于照片左上方的边缘之外。在照片的中上部，我们可以看到御夫座中的五车五（Elnath）。这颗星与希腊神话中的英雄厄里克托尼俄斯（Erichthonius）有关，据说他是四马战车的发明者。这颗星也被认为是金牛座（Taurus）公牛“上角”的末端。在希腊神话中，金牛座与众神之王宙斯（Zeus）有关，宙斯曾派他去抢劫一位公主。众所周知，这个希腊神话故事是为了将巴比伦星座纳入希腊神话体系而编织的。在美索不达米亚的《吉尔伽美什史诗》（我们所知的最古老的文学作品之一，可追溯到公元三千年）中，金牛座是“天之公牛”，是一位嫉妒的女神派来的，被乌鲁克国王打败，拯救了他的人民。在天空中，金牛座包含了许多有趣的天体。
Credit: Mohamed Aboushelib/IAU OAE

Caption: 这张图展示了不同恒星温度和亮度。每个点的大小代表恒星的半径，颜色代表人眼所看到的颜色。恒星的颜色从淡蓝色到淡橙红色不等，没有恒星具有像红、绿或蓝这样的纯颜色，因为恒星的光谱包含了许多不同颜色的光。然而，最红的恒星通常被称为红恒星，最蓝的恒星被称为蓝恒星。为了展示不同类型的恒星，制作这个图表的恒星样本选择上并没有反映出每种类型恒星的实际数量比例。 从左上到右下是一条长长的恒星带，这些恒星在其核心燃烧氢气，这被称为主序。在这条线上，我们可以看到参宿三（Mintaka）、波江座α星（Achernar）、天狼星A（Sirius A）、太阳和比邻星（Proxima Centauri）等恒星。在主序线右下方的比邻星周围的天体被称为红矮星。在红矮星的右下方是Teide 1和Kelu-1 A。这两个天体是褐矮星，它们的质量太低，核心没有足够的热量来持续地进行氢融合。由于它们不燃烧氢，褐矮星不被认为是主序星。"褐矮星"这个名字与它们的颜色无关。 在主序星的上方，我们发现次巨星、巨星和超巨星。这些是已经完成了核心的氢燃烧并演化成更大天体的恒星。恒星的亮度取决于其温度和大小，因此巨星比具有较小半径但相同温度的恒星更亮。随着时间的推移，这些天体将走向生命的尽头，经历行星状星云阶段或变成超新星。以行星状星云阶段结束生命的恒星会形成一种叫做白矮星的恒星残骸。这种天体比相同温度的恒星小得多，因此更暗淡，并且位于主序星带的显著下方。以超新星结束生命的恒星会成为黑洞或中子星。这些在这个图表上没有显示。
Credit: IAU OAE/Niall Deacon