Best Night-Sky Pictures of 2011 (National Geographic)

1st Place, "Beauty of the Night Sky" Category

Photograph by Stephane Vetter, TWAN

A dazzling green aurora frames the arc of the Milky Way over Jökulsárlón, the largest glacier lake in Iceland, on March 10. The picture is a first-prize winner in the Second International Earth and Sky Photo Contest's "Beauty of the Night Sky" category.

Organized by astronomy-education projects The World at Night (TWAN) and Global Astronomy Month, the contest honors pictures that meet one of two criteria: "either to impress people on how important and amazing the starry sky is, or to impress people on how bad the problem of light pollution has become." In total, ten winners were announced May 9 in either the "Beauty of the Night Sky" or "Against the Lights" category.