The creators of travel and adventure blog Capture Atlas have announced the winners of the eighth annual Milky Way Photographer of the Year photo contest. There were over 6,000 applications for it in 2025. A selection of 25 of the best submissions from around the globe, from New Zealand to Chad, were chosen from these. For the first time in the contest’s history, one of the photos was taken outside of Earth — from aboard the ISS.
In the photos, the Milky Way neighbors celestial phenomena such as a comet, a meteor shower, and a lunar eclipse, illustrating just how dynamic and magical our night sky can be. The editors of Universe Space Tech have selected some of the most spectacular winning images.
The first image shows how the Milky Way looks from aboard the ISS. The image was taken by astronaut Don Pettit in the Cupola module.
In the second image, the Milky Way neighbors meteors from the Perseid shower. The image was taken from the Canadian Rocky Mountains.
And this is how the Milky Way and comet C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan — ATLAS) looked over the Pacific Ocean. The image was taken from the coast of California.
The next image shows the Milky Way over the Matterhorn mountain. The image was taken at an altitude of 3200 meters in the Pennine Alps.
In this image, the Milky Way neighbors the erupting Fuego volcano. The image was taken in Guatemala.
And this is what our galaxy looked like over the Dobratsch Nature Park in Austria.
In this image, the Milky Way is also captured over the Pacific Ocean. However, the image was taken not from the Californian coast, but from the New Zealand coast.
And this photo has rightfully earned the name “Night Guards”: the famous stone statues of Easter Island seem to guard the night sky and the Milky Way stretching across it.
On March 14, 2025, a total lunar eclipse was observed in South America. This is how the blood moon looked against the band of the Milky Way and the Magellanic clouds. The image was taken from the Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert, one of the best places on Earth for astronomical observations.
All other images of the Milky Way, as well as details of their capture, are available on the official contest website.
