We congratulate the winners of our Spring Contest 2026 on M51!
We had more than 150 downloads of the data set in XISF as well as FITS, TIFF formats. Thank you very much for the interest! 47 hobby astronomers presented their images which almost doubles the submissions in our previous contest.
Christoph Kaltseis, one of our jury members said: “I was impressed by the quality and high passion many submissions showed.”
The jury consisting of Vicent Peris, Alicia Lozano, Edoardo Radice, Emma Pezzi, Omar Cazzanti, Loris Ferrini, Theodoros Kapsis, Christoph Kaltseis and Ulf Backmeyer has voted. Interestingly, they convened almost unanimously on the three winners!
The Results Are:
Michael Deger (Germany)
Unanimously, the jury allocated the FIRST PLACE to MICHAEL DEGER (Germany). We were stunned by the very balanced depth of the processed image! Very well done, Michael! Besides, the overall accuracy and balance of the image convinced all members of the jury. In all voting categories Michael got the first place.
Vicent Peris: “This was the only image that clearly showed the Ha cliffs outside the inner galaxies.”
Michael wins a 4-month subscription to images of one of our telescopes. He will receive from May to August 2026 two tremendous data sets of his telescope of choice.
Paolo Novelli (Italy)
The SECOND PLACE goes to PAOLO NOVELLI from Italy. Emma Pezzi: “I want to highlight the very well processed details of that image.”
Paolo wins three data sets of choice captured by our DeltaRhos.
The THIRD PLACE goes to MICHAL WIERZBINSKI from Poland for one of the most balanced images we received. Michal wins one data set of choice from our DeltaRhos.
Michal Wierzbinski (Poland)
We decided to acknowledge the results of seven more images that were submitted. The creators of these images put a lot of passion into their work and made it almost on the winners’ podium. Venus Poulain (France), Mario Zauner (Austria), Massimo di Fusco (Italy), Jason Marriot (USA), Casey Good (USA), Andrea Aggela (Sweden) and Gabriele Gegenbauer (Austria) will receive a voucher of 30 Euro each for their submissions. This voucher can be applied for any product on our website. During the upcoming days we will contact all winners and hand out their prices. Once again, we would like to say a big THANK YOU! to all of you who submitted their images as well as to the jury members for their voting on the images!