Visitors to West Midlands Safari Park in Bewdley, UK on October 17, 2023 are enjoying the bright October sunshine ahead of the storms to come. A curious giraffe meets eye to eye with a car full of happy visitors while licking the car windscreen with his long tongue. (Photo by Lee Hudson/Alamy Live News)

Gorgeous galaxies and stunning stars make up this selection of pictures from the shortlisted entries for this year’s Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year award. The winners will be announced on 15 September, and an exhibition of the winning images will be will be displayed in a free exhibition at the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Centre from 17 September. Here: “Seven Magic Points”. The rusty red swirls of the circular, iron sculpture Seven Magic Points in Brattebergan, Norway mirror the rippling aurora above. (Photo by Rune Engebø/Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2016/National Maritime Museum)

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.

Nine years ago, Tom Carter traveled from San Francisco to China, responding to a job posting that turned out to be a scam. He managed to find another job as a teacher, and saved enough money to embark on a 56,000 km trip through all of China's 33 provinces that lasted two years. Carrying a camera – just a a 4-megapixel point-and-shoot – Carter captured some amazing images of the widely varying landscape, people, and architecture across the nation. Photo: Buddhist pilgrim family from Sichuan. (Photo by Tom Carter via The Atlantic)

This combination of August 30, 2005 and July 29, 2015 aerial photos shows downtown New Orleans and the Superdome flooded by Hurricane Katrina and the same area a decade later. Katrina's powerful winds and driving rain bore down on Louisiana on August 29, 2005. The storm caused major damage to the Gulf Coast from Texas to central Florida while powering a storm surge that breached the system of levees that were built to protect New Orleans from flooding. (Photo by David J. Phillip/Gerald Herbert/AP Photo)

Musher Justin Savidis' dogs wait in the truck before the restart of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Willow, Alaska March 6, 2016. Mushers and dog sled teams from around the world embark on the first leg of Alaska's grueling Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, starting a nearly 1,000-mile (1,609 km) journey through the state's unforgiving wilderness. (Photo by Nathaniel Wilder/Reuters)

A participant jumps trying to control a bull during the annual bull taming “Jallikattu” festival in Palamedu village on the outskirts of Madurai in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu on January 16, 2020. (Photo by Arun Sankar/AFP Photo)

In this Monday, July 25, 2016 photo, skydiver Luke Aikins smiles as he jumps from a helicopter during his training in Simi Valley, Calif. After months of training, this elite skydiver says he's ready to leave his chute in the plane when he bails out 25,000 feet above Simi Valley on Saturday. That's right, no parachute, no wingsuit and no fellow skydiver with an extra one to hand him in mid-air. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/AP Photo)