Olga Gharkova enters a aromatherapy room at the British Banya bathhouse, Saturday, February 15, 2014, in Krasnaya Polyana, Russia, just a few miles away from the ski slopes where athletes are competing for Olympic medals. (Photo by Jae C. Hong/Associated Press)

Ultra-Orthodox Jews dance next to a bonfire during celebrations for the Jewish holiday of Lag Ba-Omer in Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighbourhood May 25, 2016. This day marks the hillula (celebration, interpreted by some as anniversary of death) of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai, a Mishnaic sage and leading disciple of Rabbi Akiva in the 2nd century, and the day on which he revealed the deepest secrets of kabbalah in the form of the Zohar (Book of Splendor), a landmark text of Jewish mysticism. (Photo by Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)

Animals destined for the stage of Radio City Music Hall in New York on November 13, 1986 are led to the stage door by their co-stars, the Rockettes dancers. A variety of animals, including camels, sheep and donkeys, will star in an annual Christmas production. (Photo by G. Paul Burnett/AP Photo)

Geraldine Moodie overcame harsh conditions to become western Canada’s first professional female photographer, capturing beautiful images in the country’s most remote regions. An exhibition, “North of Ordinary: The Arctic Photographs of Geraldine and Douglas Moodie”, is at Glenbow, Calgary, 18 February – 10 September. Here: Inuit woman, Kootucktuck, in her beaded attigi. Fullerton Harbour, Nunavut, February 1905. (Photo by Geraldine Moodie/The Guardian)

Lightning strikes near Jacobsdorf at the Oder-Spree district in eastern Germany, September 1, 2015. (Photo by Patrick Pleul/AFP Photo)

A Palestinian boy holds an umbrella as he runs near houses that witnesses said were destroyed or damaged by Israeli shelling during the most recent conflict between Israel and Hamas, on a rainy day in the east of Gaza City November 16, 2014. (Photo by Suhaib Salem/Reuters)

The Leshan Giant Buddha, a 71-metre tall stone statue, is carved out of a cliff face in the southern part of Sichuan province in China. (Photo by Suchet Suwanmongkol/500px)

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.