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)

Arachnids category 3rd place: dancing spider by Raed Ammari. Male jumping spiders (in this case a Phidippus insignarius) perform a courtship dance in which they almost form a heart shape with their legs. This one was shot in Colorado. (Photo by Raed Ammari/Luminar Bug Photographer of the Year 2020)

Tropical acrobatics by Adrià López Baucells in Manaus, Brazil. An unidentified South American marsupial, although the characteristic black markings on its face indicate it may be a mouse opossum. These small creatures are nocturnal and feed on bugs, fruit and bird eggs. (Photo by Adrià López Baucells/2019 Royal Society of Biology Photography Competition)

Shortlisted: Pooyan Shadpoor, Houcheraghi. While walking along the shore of Larak, Iran – an island in the Persian Gulf – Shadpoor came across this luminous scene. The “magical lights of (the) plankton ... enchanted me so that I snapped the shot”, he writes. (Photo by Pooyan Shadpoor/2016 EPOTY)

Second place, Nature: double trapping. Picture taken in the Brazilian Pantanal ... when I downloaded the CF did not want to believe it ... The nature knows we always give magnificent events but sometimes extraordinary. (Photo by Massimiliano Bencivenni/National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest)

“Tasty Nature” by Dipesh Bhatt. “The blue banded bee (Amegilla cingulata) is pointing this sheath towards the flowers in preparation for sipping nectar”. Taken in Gujarat, India. (Photo by Dipesh Bhatt/2016 Royal Society of Biology Photographer of the Year competition)

A model poses for a portrait backstage during Dakar Fashion Week July 10, 2011. (Photo by Finbarr O'Reilly/Reuters)

Aurorae category runner-up: Lone Tree under a Scandinavian Aurora by Tom Archer (UK). The photographer decided to explore the area around the hotel on a very crisp -35C evening in Finnish Lapland. When he found this tree, he decided to wait for the misty conditions to change and could not believe his luck when the sky cleared and the aurora came out in the perfect spot. Archer spent about an hour photographing it before his camera started to lock up because of the harsh conditions, but by then he was happy to call it a night. (Photo by Tom Archer/2020 Astronomy Photographer of the Year)