Tom Rae wins Milky Way Photographer of the Year for the third time with a freezing Remarkables shoot above Queenstown

Christchurch astrophotographer Tom Rae has won the Capture the Atlas Milky Way Photographer of the Year competition for the third time, this time with a long, cold night above Lake Wakatipu and a portrait of the winter galactic arch sweeping above the Remarkables.

The image, titled Night at the Remarkables, was named one of 25 winners of the global award, selected from more than 6,500 submissions to the ninth edition of the contest.

Run by the travel and astrophotography blog Capture the Atlas, the competition recognises the technical skill, location and storytelling behind night sky images, and features photographers from across the world. The full 2026 gallery includes shots from Iceland, Patagonia, the Sahara and the high Atacama, and Rae’s South Island image sits comfortably alongside them.

The 21 year old, who grew up in Christchurch and picked up his first camera at 13, told RNZ the photograph cost him a freezing night out in winter conditions on the alpine slopes overlooking Queenstown.

He climbed steep snow and ice carrying a Nikon Z6A, a Sigma Art 28mm f/1.4 lens, and an iOptron Skyguider Pro star tracker, then spent hours through the night taking long exposures while the rest of the country slept. He camped on the snow until sunrise.

“That night was one of the more extreme examples of overnight camping that I’ve had,” Rae told the public broadcaster. “But so worth it.”

The image is a multi-frame composite. The sky was built from 21 thirty-second exposures at f/2.5 and ISO 1600, while the foreground was assembled from 12 frames at f/2.8 and ISO 1600, with one short exposure capturing the warm city lights of Queenstown rising from the foot of the mountains. The result is a single panorama that pairs a wild alpine ridge with the soft glow of a populated valley below.

“That is an image that I always look at and go, ‘Wow, like I absolutely love that,'” Rae said.

Rae’s career has been shaped by New Zealand’s southern skies. Living so far from northern hemisphere light pollution, and surrounded by some of the cleanest air in the developed world, he is part of a small but visible generation of New Zealand astrophotographers using the South Island’s mountains and Mackenzie Basin night skies to compete with shooters working in Iceland, Chile and the American Southwest.

His earlier wins in this same competition came in 2023, with a panorama taken in the Mackenzie Basin around Lake Tekapo, and again in 2024, with an image called Tasman Gems from the Tasman Valley below Aoraki. Both areas sit inside the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, which is one of the largest gold tier dark sky reserves in the world and one of the reasons New Zealand keeps producing winners in this field.

The 2026 win takes him to three appearances in five years on a list that is now widely watched in international astrophotography circles. PetaPixel ran a feature on the year’s full selection earlier in the week, and Time Out highlighted the New Zealand entry as one of the standouts.

The Remarkables themselves are a familiar New Zealand backdrop, framing Queenstown to the east and falling away into Lake Wakatipu. They are best known to most Kiwis as a ski field and as one of the more dramatic mountain views in the country, but Rae has used the same range to make something altogether quieter, a study of how a galaxy looks from the bottom of the world when the wind drops and the snow settles.

The technique he favours is getting more familiar to New Zealand viewers. A star tracker is a small motorised mount that turns the camera with the stars during long exposures, so the night sky stays pin sharp while the photographer waits in the cold. The foreground is captured separately, often at twilight or with brief flashes of moonlight, then the two are blended in editing. Done well, the result looks the way the sky feels to the naked eye on a clear winter night in the high country, only sharper.

Rae has spoken in past interviews about how much of his work is self taught, with most of his early progress made by taking the same composition again and again in slightly different weather, then comparing the files at home. The Remarkables image, he said, took many days of editing to finish.

For New Zealand readers, the win lands at a useful moment, with winter approaching and skies in Otago, Mackenzie and the Central North Island already darkening from late afternoon. The Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve is open to visitors year round, and tourism operators in Tekapo, Twizel and Queenstown all run guided night photography sessions for amateurs willing to brave a cold tripod.

Tom Rae’s full portfolio is available on his personal website, with the Remarkables shot now sitting alongside his earlier Mackenzie panoramas.

Have you tried astrophotography in the South Island, or watched the Milky Way arch over the Remarkables yourself? Share your photos and your favourite dark sky spots in the comments below.