A cosmic photo contest has given amateur astronomers the chance to draw out the hidden beauty of the universe and the results are spectacular.
Last week, the European Southern Observatory announced the winners of its Hidden Treasures 2010 astrophotography contest. The competition invited amateur astronomers to dig through ESO's vast archives and transform raw, gray-scale telescope observations into gorgeous full-color images of space.
Igor Chekalin, from Russia, won the grand prize — a trip to ESO's Very Large Telescope in Paranal, Chile. His prize-winning pictureis a stunning shot of the M78 nebular complex in the constellation Orion.
More: http://www.space.com/10676-amateur-astronomers-space-photo-contest.html (http://www.space.com/10676-amateur-astronomers-space-photo-contest.html)
Now that is a seriously nice result
I have the utmost respect for this guy.
The M78 data is precisely the data I downloaded:
http://forum.orpington-astronomy.org.uk/index.php?topic=6624.msg41719#msg41719
I really couldn't make the time commitment required to turn the data into something great. He's produced a fantastic result and is a worthy winner.
Links to the "runner up" images can be found on this page: http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1102/
Mark