An EIGHT-year-old girl from Ponthirwaun is one of 70 entrants from the Royal Photographic Society’s Science Photographer of the Year competition who has been chosen to exhibit her image at an exhibition at the Science Museum in London.

Xzvannah Kentish, a pupil at Ysgol Y Ddwylan in Newcastle Emlyn, is the youngest entry to have taken part in the competition.

Her image is entitled ‘Sky at Knight’ and was taken of her brother Casper - who himself has already enjoyed success on the international photography stage - one day after school when he was trying out his new telescope.

She said: “The moon was out when it was still bright and I went out with my Ipad to see if I could take some pictures of the moon too.

“He was hogging it to himself and it was getting cold so instead of taking pictures of the moon I took pictures of him looking at the moon. When I was taking the pictures I saw my mum’s knight called Harry looked like he was looking at us so I moved round a bit.”

The free exhibition will comprise the highlights of the competition in which entrants were required to take a visually appealing picture that tells a science story either with a camera or smart phone.

The exhibition will be held in The Studio on the second floor of the Science Museum’s iconic building on Exhibition Road, London. Seventy images will be on display from October 7 until January 5, 2020, in a purpose-designed gallery space, intended to allow viewers time to absorb the images and their background stories.

The expert panel of selectors were TV presenter Dallas Campbell; the Science Museum’s Roger Highfield; designer, materials engineer and television presenter Dr Zoe Laughlin and medical imaging expert Catherine Draycott.

Dallas Campbell said: “There was a very high standard of images spanning a huge range of subjects from the microscopic to the grand scales of the human world and beyond. Technically stunning and brimming with arresting ideas.”

RPS Science Exhibition Coordinator, Gary Evans says, “Science has always been integral to photography and photography remains essential to science as a tool for research and for communicating it to the public. The RPS is delighted to be exhibiting at the Science Museum, where we are sure the images will engage, entertain and educate in equal measure.”

The competition was open to all ages and levels of expertise and there were two categories; Science Photographer of the Year and Young Science Photographer of the Year (under 18 years old). The overall winners will be announced on October 7.