Members of St. Dominic Catholic Church take part in a re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, on Good Friday in Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria, on April 18, 2025. (Photo by Sodiq Adelakun/Reuters)

An owl peeps out from behind a rusty piece of farming equipment in Teddesley Park, Staffordshire, UK in the last decade of July 2025. (Photo by David Akers/Solent News & Photo Agency)

Spain's #02 Tania Moreno Matveeva digs the ball in the women's round of 16 beach volleyball match between Spain and Netherlands during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Eiffel Tower Stadium in Paris on August 5, 2024. (Photo by Aris Messinis/AFP Photo)

This Thursday, January 22, 2015 photo made with a long exposure shows the glow from a Noctiluca scintillans algal bloom along the seashore in Hong Kong. The luminescence, also called Sea Sparkle, is triggered by farm pollution that can be devastating to marine life and local fisheries, according to University of Georgia oceanographer Samantha Joye. Noctiluca itself does not produce neurotoxins like other similar organisms do. But its role as both prey and predator tends can eventually magnify the accumulation of toxins in the food chain, according to R. Eugene Turner at Louisiana State University. (Photo by Kin Cheung/AP Photo)

Russian Police academy female cadets march during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade at Dvortsovaya (Palace) Square in St Petersburg, Russia, Wednesday, May 7, 2014. Victory Day, marking the defeat of Nazi Germany, is Russia's most important secular holiday celebrated on May 9. (Photo by Dmitry Lovetsky/AP Photo)

An Armatix employee holds a “smart gun” by the company at the Armatix headquarters in Munich May 14, 2014. The gun is implanted with an electronic chip that allows it to be fired only if the shooter is wearing a watch that communicates with it through a radio signal. If the gun is moved more than 10 inches (25 cm) from the watch, it will not fire. A Maryland gun shop owner has dropped his plan to be the first in the United States to sell the so-called “smart gun” after a backlash that included death threats. (Photo by Michael Dalder/Reuters)

Mechanic and welder Sergei Kulagin, 32, strengthens the bracing of a spider sculpture, made by Kulagin, during a demonstration on the wall of an automobile repair workshop in the town of Divnogorsk outside Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, October 15, 2014. Enthusiast Kulagin, who works as a mechanic of an automobile service station, created about 20 sculptures made of used car parts and components during his non-working hours. (Photo by Ilya Naymushin/Reuters)

The Royal Observatory just announced its Astronomy Photographer Of The Year 2013 winners. Australian photographer Mark Gee was chosen among a thousand amateur and professional photographers around the globe to win the top title. His work is part of an exhibition of the winning photographers, which opened on Sept. 19 at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. The Royal Observatory shared with us the winners and notable mentions of the competition. Their descriptions of the prizewinners can be found below the images.