Hot air balloons in flight over Melbourne, Australia on January 24, 2022. (Photo by Rex Features/Shutterstock)

Torchbearers Charles Antoine Kouakou, Fabien Lamirault, Elodie Lorandi, Nantenin Keita and Alexis Hanquinquant gesture after lighting the Cauldron to conclude the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Summer Paralympic Games at Place de la Concorde on August 28, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images)

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.

Man prepares wigs as he waits for customers in downtown Johannesburg, on August 5, 2014. Some estimates put Africa's dry hair industry at as much as $6 billion a year; Nigerian singer Muma Gee recently boasted that she spends 500,000 naira ($3,100) on a single hair piece made of 11 sets of human hair. (Photo by Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters)

A man carries food supplies on a donkey to Dhalamlam Mountain in the Jafariya district of the western province of Raymah, Yemen June 2, 2016. In villages perched high on a mountain in Western Yemen, residents are a safe distance from a conflict raging throughout most of the country but have had to turn the clock back on their lifestyles by centuries. (Photo by Abduljabbar Zeyad/Reuters)

People in Kathmandu joke that the face mask has now become part of the national dress – an indispensable accessory in an effort to protect themselves from the dust. Nepal has the worst air quality in the world, according to the Environmental Performance Index. (Photo by Pete Pattisson/The Guardian)

The moon rises on the behind the “Torchbearer” statue in Hannover, Germany, Wednesday, November 5, 2025. (Photo by Julian Stratenschulte/dpa via AP Photo)

Women take part in the desert trek “Rose Trip Maroc”, on November 1, 2019 in the erg Chebbi near Merzouga. The Rose Trip Maroc is a female-oriented trek where teams of three must travel through the southern Moroccan Sahara desert with a compass, a map and a topographical reporter. (Photo by Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFP Photo)