Some of the best entries so far in the 2016 Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. There are two weeks left to enter, and the winners will be announced in September. Here: Aurora over Laksvatn Fjord, Laksvatn, Norway. The aurora borealis dances in the skies over the town of Laksvatn, with the Milky Way to the left. The image is a single shot with no compositing, only post-processing to bring out the aurora, and some colour corrections. The photographer Matt Walford said: “I love the way the northern lights look like they are just wistfully dancing over the fjord, framed by the mountains on either side”. (Photo by Matt Walford/National Maritime Museum)

A climate change activist plays a violin in Times Square as Manhattan is shrouded in haze and smoke which drifted south from wildfires in Canada, in New York City, New York, U.S., June 7, 2023. (Photo by Maye-E Wong/Reuters)

Deputies of the opposition fight with deputies of the majority for a second time in two days, during the second session of the newly elected Ukrainian parliament in Kiev on December 13, 2012. (Photo by Sergei Supinsky/AFP Photo)

First place, The Beauty of Plants. “There are many stages of lotus growth on display at the Aquatic Gardens, but to come across twotwisted dancing stems of nelumbo nucifera was unexpected and quite magical”. (Photo by Kathleen Furey/The Guardian)

People struggle with the wind as they cross the street under the rain as typhoon Mitag is expected to hit northern Taiwan, in Keelung, Taiwan, 30 September 2019. According to report, Typhoon Mitag will disrupt air, land and water traffic. Mitag is located at sea about 290 kilometers off the south-southeast of Yilan County, moving at 27 kilometers per hour at a northwesterly direction, with maximum sustained winds of 126 kilometers per hour, with gusts of up to 162 kilometers per hour, and with a radius of 180 kilometers, according to Taiwan Central Weather Bureau. (Photo by Ritchie B. Tongo/EPA/EFE/Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Two young girls play near a makeshift tent where their family stay after the earthquake in Samandag, southern Turkey, Thursday, February 16, 2023. Ever since the Feb. 6 earthquake decimated swaths of Turkey and Syria, survivors have gathered outside destroyed houses and apartments, refusing to leave. (Photo by Francisco Seco/AP Photo)

Year of the Rabbit celebration's in Dublin, Ireland on January 29, 2023: Wang Zhi Ning during her Peking Opera Solo performance. (Photo by Nick Bradshaw/The Irish Times)

The MS Princess Seaways battles through the waves off Tynemouth pier as gale force winds hit the North east UK on September 25, 2020. (Photo by Owen Humphreys/PA Images via Getty Images)