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.

The French graphic designer and photographer uses a method he calls “digital matte painting”, layering several photos on top of each other to create an incandescent composition that seems eerily familiar yet ultimately impossible. Filled with tumbling clouds and glowing focal points, the images possess a depth that stretches the two-dimensional canvases backward as violent skies seem to undulate before the viewers' eyes.

A young woman cools herself in a fountain in Budapest, Hungary July 6, 2015. Over the weekend, a heat wave has reached Hungary with temperatures topping 38 degrees Celsius (100.4 degrees Fahrenheit). (Photo by Laszlo Balogh/Reuters)

A model models shoes at the Chloe Gosselin Presentation during Fall 2016 New York Fashion Week at Lori Bookstein Fine Art on February 14, 2016 in New York City. (Photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images)

“Mountain Goats, Colorado”. A herd of mountain goats huddle together on top of Mount Evans, Colorado during a lightning storm. This photo was selected out of more than 5,000 entries to go on display in “Wilderness Forever: 50 Years of Protecting America’s Wild Places”, a new photo exhibition at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, which will run through summer 2015. (Photo by Verdon Tomajko/Smithsonian Wilderness Forever Photo Contest)

The world's first 3D printed car – the Stratti – was built in just 45 hours at the International Manufacturing Technology Show which took place between September 8 – 13, 2014. The Strati, which is Italian for layers, has a chassis body made of one solid piece and has a top speed of 40mph. The tyres, seats, wheels, battery, wiring, suspension, electric motor and window shield of the revolutionary vehicle were made using conventional methods. (Photo by Barcroft Media/ABACAPress)

In this composite image (L-R top row) Dok Haze, Douglas Child as Camp Dracula, Mongolian Laughing Boy, Tony Walls, Asia Sawika as Anastasia, (L-R bottom row) zombie bass guitar player Ozzy Jackson, sword swallower Hannibal Hellmurto, pickled person, Zoe Olivia Ellis and The Sinister Sisters, Steph Bates (L) and Steph Randall (R) pose for a photograph prior to a rehearsal of the Circus of Horrors' latest show The Night of the Zombie at the Wookey Hole Caves Theatre near Wells on October 23, 2014 in Somerset, England. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)

To most of us, hand-feeding crocodiles might sound like a one-way ticket to a watery grave. But for Jose Eduardo Chaves Salas, 32, coming within inches of the fearsome creatures’ razor-sharp teeth is all in a day’s work. He runs Jose's Crocodile River Tour on the Tarcoles River in Costa Rica, where tourists can watch him feed crocs up to 17 feet long. Photo: A tour guide shows a thumbs up as he sits on top of a crocodile on the Tarcoles river in Tarcoles, Costa Rica. (Photo and caption by Barcroft Media)