Star photographer wins prize with stunning Aoraki Mount Cook shot

Since he started to look up at the night sky in wonder as a boy, astronomy has fascinated photographer Tom Rae.

Now he is a leading light in the specialist field of landscape astro photography.

Rae painstakingly stitches together several photographs to make one stunning image.

His winning picture this year is 'The Ridge' taken at Aoraki Mount Cook is comprised of 62 individual photos stitched together to create a panoramic view.

“It's an image of a very sharp ridge line in Aoraki Mount Cook National Park with the Milky Way essentially banding over the top of the ridge line and the two valleys that I captured it over,” he told RNZ’s Culture 101.

Rae, who is based in Canterbury, scoped out the potential image by taking preparatory shots with his phone, he says.

“I climbed up this ridge line and I took some photos on my phone and then I thought yep, this is one that I'll have to come back for when the Milky Way aligns, which was a year from that date.”

Although a scramble to get into position for shooting, it’s an immersive experience he says.

“I usually like shooting astro photography just by myself, it's quite a tranquil experience and it really allows you to be immersed in the entire environment and enjoy the experience a lot more,” he says.

His specialty is wide field astro photography.

“That's using a standard camera and a standard lens and shooting images that essentially capture quite a lot of the sky in one go.”

But he combines those stunning skyscapes with the landscape which sits under them, South Canterbury being particularly blessed in both regards, he says.

“I'm combining things like mountain ranges with the night sky, rivers, anything that I believe would be a nice and I guess complement to the night sky above.”

He uses two Nikon cameras which are “astro modified”.

“A camera can see a huge amount more than what your eye can see.

“And that's one of my main draws to astro photography is revealing what is real, but what you can't see.”

The modifications allow for wavelengths of light emitted from the night sky to be captured that a regular camera would screen out, he says.

“There are a number of wavelengths of light that come from space, objects in space, like nebulae and galaxies, that are essentially cut out by that standard bit of glass that camera companies are using.”

His allows for light from hydrogen to enter the camera, he says.

“In the night sky, there's a huge amount of hydrogen gas floating around, and that emits a beautiful red colour. And if you look at my images, you'll be able to see that red colour showing through.”

Rae, who also leads night sky guiding and photography groups, says looking up to the heavens gives us all perspective.

“The fact that we're just a little planet orbiting around a little star in a small galaxy amongst hundreds of billions of other galaxies, that is like an amazing thing to grasp.”

Rae has been published all over the world including National Geographic, The Guardian, NASA and Forbes and his winning photograph will be displayed at the Royal Museum's Greenwich exhibition.