Each year The Royal Observatory Greenwich holds the Astronomy Photographer of the Year awards. This free exhibition showcases some incredible images of the sky, ranging from within our solar system to far into deep space.
The 2012 awards features the transit of Venus, comets, nebulae, aurorae and more which can be found in on display at the Royal Observatory. This year’s winning entries have come from all around the world in another record-breaking year, with more images entered than ever before.
If you can’t afford to plan a visit to the Royal Observatory and check out the winning photographs below.
Winner: Deep Space category – M51: The Whirlpool Galaxy by Martin Pugh
Runners-up: Simeis 147 Supernova Remnant by Rogelio Bernal Andreo (USA)
Runners-up: NGC 6960 – The Witch’s Broom by Robert Franke (USA)
Runners-up: The Perseus Cluster – Abell 426 by Robert Franke (USA)
Runners-up: Sharpless-136: ‘Ghost’ in Cepheus by Oleg Bryzgalov (Ukraine)
Winner: Earth and Space category – Star Icefall by Masahiro Miyasaka
Runners-up: Green World by Arild Heitmann (Norway)
Runners-up: Summer Nights in Michigan by Michael A. Rosinski (USA)
Runners-up: The Milky Way View from the Piton de l’Eau, Réunion Island by Luc Perrot (Réunion Island)
Runners-up: Sky away from the Lights by Tunç Tezel (Turkey)
Winner: Our Solar System – Transit of Venus by Chris Warren
Runners-up: Mars in 2012 by Damian Peach (UK)
Runners-up: Venus Transit by Paul Haese (Australia)
Runners-up: Comet C/2009 P1 Garradd by Graham Relf (UK)
Runners-Up: Worlds of the Solar System by Damian Peach (UK)
Winner: Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year – Jacob von Chorus
Runners-up: Daytime Lunar Mosaic by Laurent V. Joli-Coeur (Canada), aged 15
Runners-up: Lunar Mountains by Jacob Marchio (USA), aged 13
Runners-up: Heavenly Showers by Jathin Premjith (India), aged 15
