Collins Astronomy Photographer of the Year: Collection 11

This was a present for a friend who has a great interest in astronomy and photography.Looks to be good for helping him to aspire to fulfilling both interests

Quick delivery. Quality product. Very pleased.

This is the 11th Astronomy Photographer of the year collection. A hardback book with 182 pages containing 138 images comprising all the shortlisted and category winners. You do not need to be a professional or have expensive photography equipment to take Astro photographs and the images in this book will encourage you to explore and maybe even take up astrophotography if you have not tried it.The book is divided into the 11 categories:1) Skyscapes: landscape and cityscapes taken in twilight and night sky featuring the Milky Way etc.2) Our Sun: solar images3) Galaxies: deep space objects beyond the milky way4) Our Moon: lunar images5) Aurorae: Auroral photographs6) Planets, Comets and Asteroids: Everything else in our solar system7) People and space: night sky including human interest8) Stars and Nebulae: deep space objects within the Milky Way9) Young Competition: For entrants under 1610) Sir Patrick Moore prize for best newcomer: for newcomers to astrophotography since January 2021.11) The Annie Maunder prize for Image Innovation: astronomical images processed using publicly available data.The layout of this book is first class, I particularly liked the icons on the first page of each section matching the chapter topic. The images themselves are reproduced very well and have text describing how they were taken. Very enjoyable reading and inspiring for what you can attain in astrophotography.In terms of openness, I was sent this item for an impartial review and I hope you found it useful. If Astrophotography has any appeal to you then get this book to be inspired and maybe next year you could win the Sir Patrick Moore prize for best newcomer.

My 15yr old is a budding photographer and so when I saw this I thought he might appreciate it. What I didn't realise is that I would end up being more fascinated and intrigued than him! I just find the images enchanting and marvel at the talent these photographers have to be able to capture such things.The book itself has a nice hardback cover and doesn't look amiss displayed on a coffee table for idle perusal. I noticed a few other reviewers commenting on the quality of the paper used, and although I can see the point, it wasn't something that occurred to me upon flicking through the pages. I actually like the layout of how it has been done, and although yes, nice thick glossy paper would be appealing, it doesn't really detract from the content of the book. Oh, and obviously there is the smell! There is just something about opening a brand new book and smelling the pages....maybe that's just me though? lolThe book begins with an introduction to the competition, along with the categories and judges. It then follows through chapters such as skyscapes, our sun, galaxies and so on. It really is a beautiful book and if you have an interest in astronomy or photography, then this will certainly tick your boxes. Would make a lovely gift too.I'd be happy to give this book by Collins, the full 5/5.

This book is hard bound, and large format, but relatively thin (17mm, 180 pages or so). It lies OK (but not completely flat) on a table due to its thinness (see photo), so it makes a good coffee table book to intrigue and entertain guests.It contains some absolutely beautiful photographs. We see a lot of these nowadays, with images from the Webb space telescope appearing on television and online, Nasa's photograph of the day, and so forth, but it's nice to have a collection in hard copy to marvel at.The main chapters/sections in this book are: Skyscapes (which include one or two of clouds rather than the moon or anything beyond), Our sun, Galaxies, Our moon, Aurorae, Planets comets and asteroids, People and space, Stars and Nebulae, Best newcomer, Image innovation, and Young competition. There is a handy thumbnail section in the back of all the photos to help you rapidly find one you are looking for.It did seem a shame to me that some of the photographs aren't full-page (see example photo). Some of these could have been blown up a bit more to show more detail and benefit from the large page size. But overall this is a lovely book full of amazing photos of the natural universe.