In this Wednesday, April 8, 2020, photo, youths remove their mask to record a dance routine on the streets of Wuhan in central China's Hubei province. Released from their apartments after a 2 1/2-month quarantine, residents of the city where the coronavirus pandemic began are cautiously returning to shopping and strolling in the street but say they still go out little and keep children home while they wait for schools to reopen. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP Photo)

The Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) is seen in the sky in Ivalo of Lapland, Finland on September 27, 2019. (Photo by Alexander Kuznetsov/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.

“Eye of a toad”. Animal Portraits, Łukasz Bożycki, Poland. Early spring sees a pond near Łukasz’s home city of Warsaw, Poland, full of mating frogs and a few toads. On this March day, Łukasz shared the pond with them for an evening, sitting in the icy water in his chest-high waders, keeping as still as possible, despite the numbing cold, so that the amphibians could get used to him. “I wanted to find a fresh way of portraying the amphibians”, he says, “at water level”. Using a telephoto lens, he focused on one lone toad and waited for the sun to dip almost below the horizon before pressing the shutter, using flash to bring out the details in the shadow. His prize was “the glorious pool of sunset colour” and fiery glow of the toad’s eye. Nikon D80 + 70-300mm f4.5-5.6 lens + extension tube; 1/125 sec at f9 (-2.3 e/v); ISO 100; built-in flash. (Photo by Łukasz Bożycki)

A girl walks an Akita-inu dog dressed in a military uniform in Vladivostok, Russia on April 9, 2019. (Photo by Yuri Smityuk/TASS)

The music group, Boyfriend, performs at the Gentilly Stage at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Thursday, April 25, 2019. (Photo by Doug Parker/AP Photo}

Giant pandas are playing and foraging inside the Shenshuping base of China Conservation and Research Center for the Giant Panda in Wolong National Nature Reserve on November 3, 2021 in Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province of China. (Photo by An Yuan/China News Service via Getty Images)

A butterfly is seen at a farm in Beykoz disrtict of Istanbul, Turkey on October 26, 2021. Cigdem Unlu runs a farm where 800 butterflies live and being presented to the visitors as the environment exclusively weathered for butterflies. (Photo by Elif Ozturk Ozgoncu/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)