A French photographer has won a top photography contest. Nicolas Lefaudeux won the prestigious prize the Astronomy Photographer the Year 2020 competition. This is run the Royal Observatory in the UK. Mr Lefaudeux won the $17,000 prize his photo our closest galaxy - the Andromeda galaxy. Andromeda is two million light years Earth. It neighbours our Milky Way galaxy. Lefaudeux used a special technique called tilt-shift to take his photo. The result is a spectacular photo that makes Andromeda look amazingly close to us. In the photo, we can clearly see the bright, oval-shaped galaxy the darkness of space. It is surrounded countless other stars and celestial objects.
Mr Lefaudeux is a celebrated astronomy photographer. His winning photo is titled "Andromeda Galaxy Arm's Length". It beat thousands other photos the world's leading photographers. The photo won the "Galaxies" category, as well as the competition's overall best photograph. Lefaudeux told reporters he was very surprised winning the top prize. He said: "I was really not expecting to be the overall winner. I had some hopes being placed the galaxy category, as I liked the sense depth given to the galaxy." He joked that he was " the Moon" when he got the news that he had scooped the prize. Reporters said he could now "reach the stars" and win more prizes.
