SkyNews – September 2019

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2019 •SKYNEWS 11

P

ortrayed here in stunning detail is the

Veil Nebula, in Cygnus—an object

familiar to most telescope users and a

popular target for astrophotographers.

Wispy features barely hinted at visually

are rendered clearly in our Grand Prize

winner, offering a “so that’swhat it really

looks like” perspective. One of the great

risks of going for such a well-known object is

the potential to end up with just another variation of a

picture everyone has seen before. What makes this Veil image by

Oleg Bouevitch award-worthy? As judge Alan Dyer summarized,

“This shot really stood out from the rest right away—a fabulous

composition, with excellent colour, depth and contrast.”

Bouevitch recorded his Veil Nebula masterpiece from his

Nepean, Ontario, home employing a Takahashi FSQ-106EDX III

astrographic telescope (at f/3.6 with a 0.7×focal reducer) and a

FLI ML16200 monochromatic CCD camera to acquire 27 hours’

exposure through H-alpha, O-III and S-II filters.

GRAND PRIZE

Advanced VX 8-inch EdgeHD

Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope

T

HAT WAS REALLY TOUGH!” All our judges independently made that com-

ment while trying to determine their Photo of the Week contest selections. As

the magazine’s editor, I was thankfully exempt from voting—I step in only

when there’s a tie. And though no fewer than 20 entries were the choice of at least one

judge in the deep-sky category alone, there were no ties. Bullet dodged! The judges’ wide

vote spread illustrates just how many excellent photos we received from readers this past

year. Tough choices? That’s a great problem to have.

The aim of our contest is not only to celebrate the superb accomplishments of Cana-

dian astrophotographers but also to encourage more readers to give night-sky photog-

raphy a try. Yes, the images presented here display a tremendous amount of skill and

talent, but don’t be intimidated if you’ve never pointed a camera skyward. Instead, let

these images inspire you. Perhaps one day, you’ll take a shot you consider prize-worthy.

And we might agree!

—Gary Seronik, Editor

GRAND

PRIZE

★ ★★

2019

celestron.com

SKYNEWS 17th ANNUAL PHOTO OF THE WEEK CONTEST

AND THE

WINNERS

ARE...

A tremendous crop of superb reader images made selecting

the ‘best of the best’ extremely challenging

“