Congratulations to the winners of the “Summer” imaging contest

We are delighted to announce the winners of the “Summer” round of our Four Seasons of the Invisible Imaging Contest. Launched in early 2025, the competition highlights seasonally inspired imaging work that reveals the unseen beauty of the microscopic world. For “Summer,” we were treated to images capturing the season’s warmth and energy, from blooming flowers and intricate seeds to hidden details of tiny parasitic organisms and even a sunrise-like view of a retinal organoid.

We received a high number of creative entries, and our panel of six judges had the difficult task of selecting two winners based on both artistic quality and relevance to the seasonal theme. It was a close call, with just one point between first and second place.

The first prize goes to Tomáš Figura of Charles University for the image A Sea Brimming with Starfish. The runner-up is Kirstin Vonderstein of Finnish Advanced Microscopy Node, University of Helsinki, for the image Summer’s Hidden Glow: Autofluorescence of Cosmos Bipinnatus.

Tomáš will receive reimbursement of up to €1,000 to attend the scientific conference of his choice, and Kirstin Vonderstein will receive reimbursement of up to €500 to attend a scientific conference.

Check out the breathtaking winning images below and do not miss your chance to take part in the next round of Four Seasons of the Invisible imaging contest! The “Autumn” round is now open for submissions until December 20.

A Sea Brimming with Starfish, by Tomáš Figura, Faculty of Science, Charles University, Prague, Czechia

Resembling a perfect summer holiday scene with a blue sea full of starfish, this is actually the seed surface of Alyssum alyssoides, a xerophilic European plant that produces seeds in the summer. The orange “starfish” structures are trichomes, shadows of “clouds” are likely caused  due to insufficient gold coating of the sample. It is scanning electron microscopy image of gold-coated dry sample acquired with a secondary electron detector and subsequently colorized. The author acknowledges technical support from Miroslav Hyliš.

Summer’s Hidden Glow: Autofluorescence of Cosmos Bipinnatus, by Kirstin Vonderstein, Finnish Advanced Microscopy Node (FiAM), University of Helsinki, Finland

This image captures the stamens of a Cosmos bipinnatus flower that was found blooming along the wayside during the height of summer. Stereomicroscope image (1.63× magnification) of an unstained Cosmos bipinnatus flower, showing natural autofluorescence in yellow, red, and green. Imaging was performed at the Biomedicum Imaging Unit, the University of Helsinki, supported by the Helsinki Institute of Life Science (HiLIFE) and Biocenter Finland.