Category Archives: Student highlights

General information, Images, Student highlights

SPIRIT Image of the Year 2020 – Winner

Congratulations to Francisco Nguyen, winner of the 2020 SPIRIT Image of the Year!
Due to the delay of Astrofest 2021 due to COVID0-19, Francisco’s award will be presented at the Astrofest Astrophotography Exhibition opening at the John Curtin Gallery in March.

‘Orion Nebula’
SPIRIT Image of the Year 2020
Photographer: Francisco Nguyen
Year 12, St Joseph’s School, Northam

Technical description: This image was taken using the
SPIRIT 1 telescope with an ACP plan to take images in 3
different filters (red, green and blue) with an exposure
of 90 seconds for each. Using Adobe Photoshop the
filter images were mixed by layering the respective
colours first, and then layering them all together. Some
adjustments were also made with the balance of the
filters, which helped to create the final image.

Supporters

The SPIRIT Image of the Year competition is supported by ASTRO 3D and ICRAR.

The winning image will be displayed as part of the Astrofest Astrophotography Exhibition at Astrofest 2021, delayed to November 13th. The exhibition will be on display at the John Curtin Gallery from the 26th of February to the 13th of March.

General information, Student highlights

SPIRIT Image of the Year Competition 2020

Note, this competition is now closed (winner announcement). We look forward to your entries for the 2021 competition later this year!

Submit your SPIRIT images for the chance to be displayed as part of the annual Astrofest Astrophotography Exhibition in February 2021 to thousands of visitors!

The best image of 2020 will be awarded SPIRIT Image of the Year, selected by the exhibition curator and judges. The winner will receive the SPIRIT Image of the Year trophy as well as a high quality print of their winning image.

Entries close December 4th, 2020 and the winner will be announced on the SPIRIT website and at Astrofest in February 2021.

How to Enter

Submit your images via the entry form by December 4th, 2020, including the following information:

  • Your name
  • Your school
  • Your year level
  • A title for your image
  • A caption for your image (including what SPIRIT telescope you used to create the image and any other details about processing, target etc.)
  • The highest resolution possible file of your image (if image is larger than 10MB it can be submitted using a filesharing service such as Dropbox)

Submit each entry using a separate form.

Entry Conditions

Entry is open to school students (primary and secondary) and all images submitted must be created with data captured using the SPIRIT telescopes, see the fulls Terms and Conditions under the entry form.

Supporters

The SPIRIT Image of the Year competition is supported by ASTRO 3D and ICRAR.

The winning image will be displayed as part of the Astrofest Astrophotography Exhibition at Astrofest 2021.

Poster

Click the image to the left to save or print a poster for the competition.

 

Discoveries, Images, Student highlights

Supernova 2016adj

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Sean Liddelow (UWA Physics) snapped a confirmation image of this magnitude 14 type IIb supernova in the famous and peculiar galaxy NGC 5128. Sean’s image was acquired on midnight, February 10 using SPIRIT II from home.

Discovery details and more information can be found here.

The supernova in the famous and peculiar galaxy NGC 5128. Image acquired on midnight, February 10 using SPIRIT II.
The supernova in the famous and peculiar galaxy NGC 5128. Image acquired on midnight, February 10 using SPIRIT II.

 

Student highlights

Meeting the challenge of astrophotography

Year 9 Challenge Science students at Iona Presentation College have spent the term using SPIRIT to undertake deep sky astrophotography. Using advanced processing techniques, the students combined images taken through filters available on the SPIRIT telescopes to create stunning colour photographs and produced both printed books and eBooks to showcase their work.

The books include information from researching their targets, together with the processes they used to create the images.

DSCF4853

DSCF4854

Student highlights

Shining star Gur

SPIRIT_Gur

One of SPIRIT’s long time users featured recently in UWA’s Vice-Chancellor’s Voice publication.

Gurashish Singh Bhatia first used SPIRIT as a year 10 science student at Mount Lawley Senior High School, and is now using SPIRIT as part of his third year Physics studies at UWA. Read the full article here.