Judges praised the composition of Li's image of the lunar corona, saying the rings of light resemble colorful brush strokes on a painting.

Both Yang and Zhang featured in last year's competition. Yang's image Gemini Meteor Shower was shortlisted for the 2018 Skyscapes category, and Zhang's shot The Moonset Eclipse over Beijing made the shortlist in the 2018 Young Photographer category.

The winner of the Best Newcomer category in last year's awards was also from China, Li Tianhong, a 30-year-old electrical engineer from Changsha, in Hunan province. His shot Galaxy Curtain Call shows the Milky Way arcing through the sky above the Chinese Spectral Radioheliograph in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Another Chinese photographer, Yu Jun, won the overall competition in 2016 with the image Baily's beads, which used multiple exposures to capture the sun during different stages of a total solar eclipse.