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.

Students learn how to use an airsoft gun from Taiwanese military instructors at Kaohsiung Municipal Sanmin Senior High School in Kaohsiung on January 11, 2024. Kaohsiung City launched a national defence education program using digital technology for all its high school students. The program also promotes drug prevention in cooperation with the Taiwan defense ministry. (Photo by Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP Photo)

The possible surface of TRAPPIST-1f, one of seven newly discovered planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system that scientists using the Spitzer Space Telescope and ground based telescopes have discovered. (Photo by Reuters/NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Members of the media document a damaged train carriage extracted from a tunnel after the deadly train derailment north of Hualien, Taiwan on April 6, 2021. (Photo by Ann Wang/Reuters)

French army deminers secure a helicopter in a hangar at the Gao airport, on February 9, 2013. Two Malian soldiers and four civilians have already been killed by landmines, and French troops are still fighting off what Paris called “residual jihadists” in reclaimed territory. (Photo by Pascal Guyot/AFP Photo via The Atlantic)

With her husband, Brazil's new President Jair Bolsonaro in the background, Brazil's new first lady Michelle Bolsonaro gives a military salute from the Planalto Presidential palace, in Brasilia, Brazil, Tuesday, January 1, 2019. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo)

Thai LGBT community participates in Gay Freedom Day Parade in Bangkok, Thailand on November 29, 2018. (Photo by Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters)

A California Highway Patrol (CHP) officer detains a protestor while clearing a pro-Palestinian encampment after dispersal orders were given at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) campus, on May 2, 2024 in Los Angeles, California. The camp was declared ‘unlawful’ by the university and over 100 protestors who refused to leave were detained during the operation. Pro-Palestinian encampments have sprung up at college campuses around the country with some protestors calling for schools to divest from Israeli interests amid the ongoing war in Gaza. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)