Astrophotography as Photographic art - the UK Royal Photographic Society (RPS)

First, congratulations on the recognition of your of your Deep Sky Wonders - Images from Beyond the Solar System photo book. And thank you for forging a path for astrophotography in the RPS awards. I will certainly consider participating in this event in the future.

CS, Gary

Well done on your award

Julian

David,
I submitted as a book and the sequence told a story. I got guidance too, which was optimistic but I submitted first to the "PhotoBook" Genre and failed. They said the content was too "documentary" in nature. On the way, I did get some improvement suggestions. I then submitted it as a "Book" to the 'Applied and Portraiture’ Genre (Now just Applied). I had made improvements to the images and layout but the book was substantially the same. It sailed through. Lots of positive comments. 
As you know you get to see the assessment via Zoom. The judges did not have any specialist knowledge of Astrophotography, although some clearly understood the degree of difficulty involved.  The comments were all about quality, colour, and impact.  So my advice if submitting for ARPS is to understand the perspective of the Genre and for the Applied genre think about how you might select photos for a colour magazine. I boosted the saturation and contrast, meticulously eliminated blemishes, artifacts etc, and paid attention to framing.  

Best of luck, Max