Photograph the South Downs night sky and you could win £150

The South Downs National Park^1,2,3 Authority has opened its astrophotography competition for the seventh year. There are five categories. Each winner gets £150 and each runner-up £75. Entries close at midnight on Monday 11 January.

Every photo has to be taken inside the National Park. Two of the park’s Dark Sky Discovery Sites are on the city’s edge: Devil’s Dyke, and Ditchling Beacon, the highest point in East Sussex. The park authority says its discovery sites are “free from the worst effects of urban light pollution”. If the car parks are full, it asks people not to park on the verge.

South Downs Dark Skyscapes is for the landscape with the stars above it, and Northern Lights shots are welcome there. Magnificent Moon also takes pictures of a solar eclipse. South Downs Life at Night covers wildlife, people, trees, plants or fungi, so a photo of people stargazing counts. From the South Downs to Deep Space is for telescope images of galaxies, nebulas and planets. The fifth, the Meteoric Mobile Phone Category, takes any night-time shot on a phone.

Elinor Newman organises the park’s Dark Skies Festival and is one of four judges. “Anyone and everyone can take part in our astrophotography contest and you don’t need expensive equipment,” she said. She would like to see “some more shots of the beautiful nocturnal wildlife that depend on the darkness in the South Downs.”

The other judges are Dan Oakley, an expert on the South Downs International Dark Sky Reserve; Vicki Wells, a National Park Authority member and former producer for BBC Sky at Night; and the astrophotographer Abby Moule. Moule said she looks for “images that tell a story, evoke a sense of wonder and make me stop and look a little longer.”

To enter, download the entry form from the competition page and fill one in for each picture. Send each image as a jpg attachment in its own email, between 1mb and 10mb. You can enter eight images at most. Pictures made with AI won’t be judged.

The winning photos go on show at the Dark Skies Festival, which runs from 11 to 21 February 2027 with events across Sussex and Hampshire. This year’s theme is the moon, and the park authority says full details of the festival will come out in early January.