Haligonians Halley Davies and Martin Hellmich took first place in an international competition to celebrate the Hubble Space Telescope.

The two entered the contest honouring the 25 years Hubble has spent orbiting earth.

"We're the Hubble generation and we've never been alive and not known about Hubble," said Hellmich, who just happens to be 25.

He and Davies created a video paying tribute to the telescope and entered it into the under-25 category. The winners were announced on Friday.

The contest, called Ode to Hubble, was put on by the Hubble and the European Space Agency.

Their video was found to be the most innovative, scientifically accurate and unique video. Their prize is a photo signed by astronauts and astronomers who have worked on the Hubble, as well as a piece of the telescope's solar panel that provided it with power.

Hellmich says they created an animation using images from Hubble's data and used that to show how perspectives have changed over time.

"We wanted to show how people used to see the sky in the past and how our perception has been brought over a series of discoveries. At the centre of it was Hubble's ultra deep field which shows you 10,000 galaxies in a very tiny patch of sky which just gives you an idea of how big the universe is," he told CBC's Mainstreet on Friday.

Reaching for the stars

Hellmich says they were inspired to create the three-minute film titled Hubble's Universe by the vast amount of information the telescope has provided.

"Just to kind of give back and continue that spirit of sharing and inspiring people. There's people working together from all over the world on this common goal of just finding more about the universe. It's pretty inspiring and we just wanted to be a part of that. Winning was just so surprising and a really big bonus," he said.

Hellmich and Davies competed against video entries from Italy, Spain, Mexico and Argentina.

Hellmich says even with the large amount of knowledge that has been accumulated about space, he says there is a lot left to discover.

"Now we know that there's billions of galaxies and each of those galaxies has like half a trillion stars and there's planets that we've even taken direct pictures of and you can just imagine the sheer amount of places that we could visit or study and your imagination just runs wild, like there's almost no limit to what could be out there," he said.