Street vendosr prepare grilled pigs to sell for the Chinese New Year celebrations at a market in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 11 February 2021. Chinese people around the world celebrate the Lunar New Year, also known as the Spring Festival, which marks the year of the Ox. (Photo by Kith Serey/EPA/EFE)

Young adults wearing a mask, attends a ceremony as they commemorates the Coming of Age Day of young people entering adulthood in Tokyo, Japan, on January 10, 2022. While the COVID-19 epidemic continues to progress in Japan due to the new Omicron variant, the events that have been organized by the various municipalities of Tokyo have followed a strict sanitary protocol, such as temperature control, disinfection of hands, and the wearing of a protective mask. (Photo by David Mareuil/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Bloodthirsty by Thomas P. Peschak, Germany/South Africa — winner, Behaviour: birds. When rations run short on Wolf Island, in the remote northern Galápagos, the sharp-beaked ground finches become vampires. Their sitting targets are Nazca boobies and other large birds. The finches rely on a scant diet of seeds and insects, which regularly dries up, so they drink blood to survive. ‘I’ve seen more than half a dozen finches drinking from a single Nazca booby,’ says Tom. Rather than leave their nests the boobies tolerate the vampires, and the blood loss doesn’t seem to cause permanent harm. (Photo by Thomas P. Peschak/2018 Wildlife Photographer of the Year)

People gather outside Red Square and the Kremlin for the New Year celebrations in downtown Moscow late on December 31, 2023. (Photo by Tatyana Makeyeva/AFP Photo)

Ben Green, of St. Augustine, flies into the pool on his inflatable alligator to find the hidden lizard at the bottom of the pool in the “Evading Arrest Obstacle Course” during the inaugural Florida Man Games, Saturday, February 24, 2024, at Francis Field in St. Augustine, Fla. (Photo by Corey Perrine/The Florida Times-Union via AP Photo)

TV personality Meredith Marks at Caesars Forum in Las Vegas, NV on Friday, November 14, 2025. (Photo by: Griffin Nagel/Bravo via 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.

Young female Ibex on the fork of Disteis (2,200 m), near the top of the Jof di Montasio (Friuli, Italy). (Photo by Stefano Zocca)