The competition, which is run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine, is now in its sixth year and has received over 2,500 entries. Photo: Centre of the Heart Nebula by Ivan Eder (Hungary). Situated 7500 light years away in the “W”-shaped constellation of Cassiopeia, the Heart Nebula is a vast region of glowing gas, energized by a cluster of young stars at its centre. The image depicts the central region, where dust clouds are being eroded and moulded into rugged shapes by the searing cosmic radiation. (Photo by Ivan Eder)

Swimmers in fancy dress splash as they participate in the New Year's Day Loony Dook swim at South Queensferry, Scotland January 1, 2015. (Photo by Russell Cheyne/Reuters)

Rolando Pujol Rodriguez photographed the Cuban raft exodus in 1994, and twenty years later Enrique de la Osa took portraits of some of the people who made it to the United States, in this story which combines archive and present day images. Here: People put the finishing touches to a makeshift boat on a rooftop before lowering it onto a truck and launching it into the Straits of Florida towards the U.S., on the last day of the 1994 Cuban raft exodus in Havana, in this September 13, 1994 file photo. (Photo by Rolando Pujol Rodriguez/Reuters)

Ice Age – Tibet, China. “This is the Chinese version of the blue ice lake, Pumoungcuo, at an altitude of 5,070 metres (16,600 feet). This lake in Tibet freezes every winter. At night, under the low temperatures of -20C, you can listen to the sound of the ice cracking while capturing the most beautiful winter sky. The blue ice surface and dazzling Orion constellation create a fantasy landscape. I felt so happy to have the stars as my companion on this magical night”. (Photo by Daniel Zafra Portill/Milky Way Photographer of the Year)

Portrait category, bronze award winner. Purple-crested Turaco Gallirex porphyreolophus. Lower Mpushini, near Pietermaritzburg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. (Photo by Richard Flack/Bird Photographer of the Year 2022)

Phuket, Thailand. The girl is in the pool, which is higher than the land, and the elephant is on the land behind the pool. The photographer used an underwater bag to get a half submerged image. (Photo by Justin Mott)

The winners of The London’s Natural History Museum's prestigious Wildlife Photographer of the Year for 2013 have finally been unveiled. Selected from almost 43,000 entries from 96 countries, the winners offer a glimpse of the stunning array of natural beauty on our planet. Photo: Canada: “Lucky pounce”. “Anticipating the pounce – that was the hardest part”, says Connor, who had come to Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA, in search of wildlife as much as the spectacular landscape. He had found this fox, his first ever, on his last day in the park. It was so absorbed in hunting that Connor had plenty of time to get out of the car and settle behind a rock. It quartered the grassland, back and forth, and then started staring intently at a patch of ground, giving Connor just enough warning of the action to come. When it sprung up, Connor got his shot. And when it landed, the fox got his mouse. (Photo by Connor Stefanison/Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013)