Gallery | 2010 Celestron Contest Winners | Honorable Mention: Rival of Mars meets Luna by George Gakdos

This shot may look odd to some people, but that's because it's a composite: a short exposure of the Moon overlaid on to its position in an exposure long enough to show the clouds and the red supergiant star Antares. These folks may claim the picture's not fair, but pretty much every astronomical picture involves co-adding several exposures, many of which are done to show faint and bright material at the same time. Perhaps we react because this is a wide-angle shot that is something we're used to seeing differently with our unaided eyes... but I wouldn't want that to prejudice anyone against this ethereal and wonderfully near-magical shot.

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