2011年度最佳太空摄影照片

伤我心太深

2011年年度天文摄影师评选正在如火如荼的进行中，以下这些照片皆是遴选自入围作品。最终的获奖名单将于9月8日揭晓，获奖作品将于第二天在格林威治的皇家天文台进行展出。本次展览可免费参观，并将会一直持续到2012年2月。

M31 Andromeda Galaxy (NGC 224) by Terry Hancock. M31 is a spiral galaxy around 2.5m light years from Earth in the constellation Andromeda. The galaxy is visible to the naked eye on moonless nights as a smudge of light and is the most distant object visible without a telescope. But the photographer from Michigan, USA, used the observatory in his backyard to reveal an enormous swirling spiral of billions of stars, glowing gas and dark dust. Andromeda will be even more impressive in 4.5bn years’ time, when it is expected to collide with our own galaxy, the Milky Way

M31仙女座星系（NGC 224）/摄影师Terry Hancock。螺旋星系M31距地球250万光年，位于仙女座中。在无月光的夜晚，M31用肉眼看上去就如同一团光的污渍，它是不用望远镜就可观测到的最遥远天体。但来自美国密歇根州的这位摄影师利用设置在自家后院中的天文台，揭示了这个包含上亿颗恒星、灼热气体和黑暗尘埃的巨型漩涡星系细节影像。在今后的45亿年时间中，仙女座将会与我们的银河系发生碰撞，届时它将会变得愈发灿烂。

Photograph: Terry Hancock/The Royal Observatory

摄影：Terry Hancock/英国皇家天文台

Orion Nebula Area by Fabian Neyer. A deep image of part of the constellation of Orion showing swirling pink clouds of hydrogen and dark clumps of interstellar dust. The Orion Nebula is the bright patch of light to the right: one of the brightest nebulae in the sky, it is clearly visible to the naked eye on winter nights and lies about 1,350 light years from Earth. Also visible are the bright stars of Orion’s Belt (left) and the tiny silhouette of the Horsehead Nebula, against the pink hydrogen clouds, centre left

猎户座星云区域/摄影师Fabian Neyer。这张猎户座部分区域的深空影像展示了呈漩涡状的粉红氢气云和黝黑的星际尘埃簇。猎户座星云是图中靠右侧的光亮区域，它是夜空中最明亮的星云之一，距离地球约为1250光年，在冬日的夜晚，利用肉眼就可以轻易观测到它。位于猎户座腰带（左侧）中的明亮恒星在图中亦清晰可见，中心偏左正对粉红氢气云的是马头星云的微小轮廓。

Photograph: Fabian Neyer/The Royal Observatory

摄影：Fabian Neyer/英国皇家天文台

Hayabusa over the Sky II by Kouji Ohnishi. The Hayabusa spacecraft was captured over Southern Australia during its re-entry on 13 June 2010. It was launched in 2003 on a mission to visit the asteroid Itokawa and reached its destination in 2005, touching down and before returning to Earth with precious samples of asteroid dust. Glowing with the heat of re-entry, the capsule sped across the sky from right to left, its colour and brightness changing as it passed through different layers of the atmosphere

天空中的“隼鸟号”太空飞船/摄影师Kouji Ohnishi。2010年6月13日在澳大利亚南部拍到的“隼鸟号” 太空飞船返回地球。“隼鸟号”于2003年发射升空，其任务是为了探测小行星丝川（Itokawa）。“隼鸟号”于2005年抵达目的地，并成功降落在这颗小行星上，取回珍贵的小行星尘埃样品后便返回了地球。图中，太空舱摩擦所产生的炙热光芒从右至左划过了夜空，它的颜色和亮度随着其穿过不同的大气层而发生改变。

Photograph: Kouji Ohnishi/The Royal Observatory

摄影：Kouji Ohnishi/英国皇家天文台

Yosemite Falls Moonbow Star Trails by Jeffrey Sullivan. The long exposure gives the illusion of daylight, but it’s the light of the full moon which is creating a rainbow in the mist of Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park, California. The star trails were achieved using more than 500 individual exposures over the course of several hours

约塞米蒂瀑布之上的月虹与星迹/摄影师Jeffrey Sullivan。照片长时间的曝光让人产生了如同白昼一般的幻象，但实际上这是满月带来的光芒，它在约塞米蒂瀑布的雾霭中生成了一道彩虹。星迹是利用几个小时的五百多次曝光综合而成的效果。

Photograph: Jeffrey Sullivan/The Royal Observatory

摄影：Jeffrey Sullivan/英国皇家天文台

Living in the Universe by Fredrik Broms. This panorama over the island of Kvaloya in Norway showcases a variety of different astronomical objects and phenomena. A curtain of Northern Lights (aurora borealis) shimmers in our atmosphere while at the centre of the image a bright moon is partly obscured by clouds. Much farther from Earth, the Pleiades star cluster twinkles above the moon, and other distant stars complete this dramatic scene, high above the Arctic Circle. The panorama comprises four images

宇宙之城/摄影师Fredrik Broms。这张挪威科瓦罗亚（island of Kvaloya）岛的全景照片是由四张照片拼接而成，它展示了多种不同的天体和天文学奇观。北极光如同光幕一般在大气中闪烁，图片中间一轮明月在云层中若隐若现。而距离地球异常遥远的昴宿星团在月亮之上闪闪发光，其他遥远的恒星则高悬在北极圈的夜空中，让这幅美景变得更加完整起来。

Photograph: Fredrik Broms/The Royal Observatory

摄影：Fredrik Broms/英国皇家天文台

Excited to Ground State by Ole C Salomonsen. The aurora borealis over mountains in Ulsfjord, Norway. The title refers to the physics behind this dazzling natural lightshow. Particles in the solar wind collide with gas molecules high in Earth’s atmosphere, transferring some of their energy and boosting the molecules' electrons into an ‘excited’ state. As the electrons return to their normal or ‘ground’ state, the molecules emit light of a characteristic colour: green for oxygen and red for nitrogen, the two main gases in our atmosphere

从激发态回归基态/摄影师Ole C Salomonsen。挪威乌尔斯约德（Ulsfjord）山区的北极光，图片的标题即揭示了这种奇妙自然光学效果的物理学原理。太阳风中的微粒与地球高层大气中的气体分子发生碰撞，它们将部分能量转移，并导致分子中的电子达到激发态。当电子在返回到正常的基态时，气体分子会发出各具特色的彩色光：氧气为绿光，氮气为红光，这是大气层中的最主要的两种气体。

Photograph: Ole C Salomonsen/The Royal Observatory

摄影：Ole C Salomonsen/英国皇家天文台

Colourful Moon-3 by Eddie Trimarchi. To the naked eye the moon appears in monochrome shades of grey, but different distributions of minerals in the lunar rock and soil give it very subtle colour variations that have been enhanced to make them visible in this unusual image

多彩的月亮/摄影师Eddie Trimarchi。人们平素用肉眼所观测到的月球会呈现出灰色的单调阴影，但在这幅不同寻常的图片上，月球岩石和土壤中矿物质组成的差异使其带上了清晰可见的颜色变化。

Photograph: Eddie Trimarchi/The Royal Observatory

摄影：Eddie Trimarchi/英国皇家天文台

Annapurna Sanctuary by Anton Jankovoy. Star trails above the Annapurna mountain range captured from base camp in the Annapurna Conservation Area in Nepal, 4,130 metres above sea level. The long exposure reveals the stars moving across the sky as the Earth rotates, their light trails reflected in the lake

安纳普尔纳峰/摄影师Anton Jankovoy。安纳普尔纳峰上空中的星迹是从位于尼泊尔安纳普尔纳保护区海拔4130米处的探险营地拍摄的。这幅长曝光照片揭示了恒星随地球旋转在夜空中留下的轨迹，它们的光迹同时也被倒影在湖面上。

Photograph: Anton Jankovoy/The Royal Observatory

摄影：Anton Jankovoy/英国皇家天文台

MangaiaOePan by Tung Tezel. The southern Milky Way viewed over the hilltops outside the village of Oneroa on the coast of Mangaia in the Cook Islands. The panorama was created using nine 30-second exposures. Moisture in the atmosphere created the diffusion and colour effects of the stars

曼加亚的夜空/摄影师Tung Tezel。在位于库克群岛曼加亚（Mangaia）海岸附近的奥纳奥阿村，南方银河悬挂在山巅之上的夜空中。这幅全景图是利用九次30秒钟的曝光综合而成的，大气层中的水分让恒星出现了漫射和彩色效果。

Photograph: Tung Tezel/The Royal Observatory

摄影：Tung Tezel/英国皇家天文台

The Spider’s Web (Tarantula Nebula and Vicinity) by Marcus Davies. A view of the Tarantula Nebula, which is 3,000 light years across. The Tarantula lies 170,000 light years from Earth within the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way galaxy. The picture is dominated by the enormous structure of gas that threads the space between the stars with skeins and clumps of glowing hydrogen. The Tarantula is a gigantic stellar nursery where thousands of new stars are being born, some as much as 130 times as massive as our own Sun

蛛网（蜘蛛星云及其邻近区域）/摄影师Marcus Davies。这张图片展示了宽达3000光年的蜘蛛星云，它距离地球17万光年，位于银河系的卫星星系大麦哲伦星云之中。星系之间线状和簇状发光氢气在宇宙中纵横交错的巨大结构占据了图片的主要部分。蜘蛛星云是一片巨大的恒星温床，有数以千计的恒星在此诞生，其中的某些恒星甚至要比太阳大上130倍。

Photograph: Marcus Davies/The Royal Observatory

摄影：Marcus Davies/英国皇家天文台

Equinox by Juan Carlos Casado. This time-lapse image shows the rotation of the Earth from the vantage point of Ecuador on the day of the Equinox in 2010. As the sun passed overhead then sank into the west it burned a bright path across the middle of the sky in this long-exposure image. Then, as the sky darkened, the stars became visible, the Earth’s spin making them trace their own circular paths about the north and south celestial poles

春分/摄影师Juan Carlos Casado。这张拍摄于厄瓜多尔某处登高点的延时照片展示了地球在2010年春分时刻的旋转。太阳从头顶越过并渐渐西沉，它在天空中部留下了一条明亮的路径。随着天空慢慢变黑，恒星变得可见起来，地球的旋转使它们绕着南北天极留下了圆形轨迹。

宇宙乾坤

太美了，无话可说了。