Participants take part in a Christmas day swim in the sea at Brighton beach, southern England on December 25, 2024. (Photo by Ben Stansall/AFP Photo)

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.

Multicolored nets are set under olive trees to collect the olives on November 27, 2013 in Castagniers, southeastern France. (Photo by Valery Hache/AFP Photo)

British South American Airways hostess Mary Guthrie with a pair of pineapples, on the return of the Lancastrian airliner 'Star Dust' to Heathrow Airport after a test-flight to Buenos Aires, 15th January 1946

A chimpanzee relaxes in the shade at the Safari Park as the popular attraction prepares for the upcoming Jewish festival of Pesach (Passover) on April 14, 2008 in Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv, Israel. (Photo by David Silverman/Getty Images)

Young Ian Archibald ponders the consequences of a complex critical study of beauty contestants during the Miss TV Times finals in London. (Photo by Central Press/Getty Images). 30 July 1971

Nepalese Hindu devotees take part in a bathing ritual on the last day of the month-long Swasthani Festival in the Hanumante River at Bhaktapur on the outskirts of Kathmandu on February 22, 2016. Devotees mark the Swasthani Festival with fasting, and with women in particular undertaking rituals in the hope of a prosperous life for her family and conjugal happiness. (Photo by Prakash Mathema/AFP Photo)

Francis Sierra, 23, smokes as she competes for the longest ash during the XVIII Habanos Festival in Havana, March 3, 2016. (Photo by Alexandre Meneghini/Reuters)