Breathtaking Entries From The UK Astronomy Photographer Of The Year 2018

The competition is run by Royal Observatory Greenwich sponsored by Insight Investment and in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine. This year astrophotographers from 91 countries sent in more than 4,200 spectacular entries.

Rigel and the Witch Head Nebula, taken by Mario Cogo from Namibia. (Photo by Mario Cogo/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

Aurora Borealis above the fjord at Haukland in the gorgeous Lofoten archipelago, Northern Norway. (Photo by Mikkel Beiter/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

A glorious Milky Way looms over a thunderstorm that lights up the Florida sky. (Photo by Xiao’s Photo/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

Earth’s only natural satellite is situated above the horizon of our planet so it is visible during daytime and the waxing gibbous phase can clearly be seen in the sky. (Photo by Helen Schofield/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

The International Space Station (ISS) was captured between two massive sunspots – taken from Madrid. (Photo by Dani Caxete/Fernández Méndez/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

A phenomenal image depicting the incredible colours and details of the surface of the Moon. (Photo by Nicolas Lefaudeux/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

During a solar eclipse, the brightness of the solar corona hides the details of the moon. (Photo by Peter Ward/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

A remarkable display of the Northern Lights reflecting shades of green and yellow on the snow. Squeezed into a tiny cave on Lake Torneträsk, in Swedish Lapland, in minus 26 degrees. (Photo by Arild Heitmann/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

This panoramic image, composed out of eight photos, depicts the Milky Way emerging over the rocky Dolomites in Tre Crime. (Photo by Carlos F. Turienzo/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

The Black Church at Búðir in Iceland beneath the stripes of the Aurora Borealis and the bright stars in the night sky. (Photo by Mikkel Beiter/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

Exploring the remarkable underbelly of the Breiðamerkurjökull glacial tongue in Iceland. (Photo by Dave Brosha/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

The magical Aurora Borealis explodes from the clouds and looms over the mountains in Stokknes on the south coast of Iceland. (Photo by Jingyi Zhang/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

The Milky Way stretches across the night sky between four columns in the ancient Atashkooh Fire Temple near Mahllat city in Iran. (Photo by M. Ghadiri/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

On a family trip to Cornwall after visiting Kynance Cove, on the Lizard Peninsula, the beautiful landscape seemed to be the ideal place for the photographer to capture the glimmering stars and the striking colours of the Milky Way illuminating the beautiful rocky coastline. (Photo by Ainsley Bennett/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

The Eagle Nebula, also known as Messier 16, is a young open cluster of stars, surrounded by hot hydrogen gas in the constellation Serpens and lies at a distance of 7,000 light years from Earth. (Photo by Marcel Drechsler/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

Taken during a summer night in Mingantu in Inner Mongolia, star trails are sweeping over the colourful and extraordinary sacred altars, called Ovoo. (Photo by Qiqige Zhao/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

The Orion Nebula is an emission nebula about 1500 light years away in the constellation Orion. (Photo by Bernard Miller/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

Taken from Tivoli Southern Sky Guest Farm in Namibia, the great Horsehead nebula is overlooking the striking and often overlooked Nebula NGC 2023. (Photo by Kfir Simon/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

The Andromeda Galaxy – with its vast dust lanes, bright star clusters in its arms and emblematic galaxy shape. (Photo by Péter Feltóti/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

The sunspot AR2665, one of the most active regions in 2017, captured by Poland’s Lukasz Sujka. (Photo by Lukasz Sujka/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

Michael Zav’yalov of Russia captured the Northern Lights from the city of Yaroslavl in Russia to the coast of the Barents Sea in the Arctic Circle. (Photo by Michael Zav’yalov/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

American photographer Brandon Yoshizawa framed the Milky Way inside a sea cave, 25 miles away from the heart of downtown Los Angeles. (Photo by Brandon Yoshizawa/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

The splendour of our galaxy in Badlands National Park, in South Dakota by Jingpeng Liu. (Photo by Jingpeng Liu/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018/Jingpeng Photo)

The Milky Way rises over some of the oldest trees on Earth in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, California, shot by the UK’s Jez Hughes. (Photo by Jez Hughes/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

The Milky Way rises above an isolated lighthouse in Tasmania. Shot by James Stone of Australia. (Photo by James Stone/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

Miguel Angel García Borrella and Lluis Romero Ventura both shot Orion Sword from hundreds of kilometres away from each other to achieve this stunning image. It is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, south of Orion’s Belt in the constellation of Orion. (Photo by Miguel Angel García Borrella and Lluis Romero Ventura/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018/Astrosirius.org)

A spectacular reflection nebulae in the Corona Australis constellation. The vivid blue is produced by the light of hot stars, reflected by silica-based cosmic dust. (Photo by Ark Hanson/Warren Keller/Steve Mazlin/Rex Parker/Tommy Tse/David Plesko/Pete Proulx/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

Irish photographer Olly Penrice captured Camelopardalis, also known as the Hidden Galaxy, one of the largest Galaxies visible from the Northern Hemisphere. It is obscured by foreground stars and dust, as it lies in the Milky Way plane. (Photo by Tom O’Donoghue and Olly Penrice/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

Milky Way stretches across the night sky reflecting on the Cable Bay near Nelson, New Zealand. (Photo by Mark Gee/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)

A weathered juniper tree in Montana’s northern Rocky Mountains is filled with arced star trails and in the centre sits Polaris, the brightest star in the constellation of Ursa Minor. (Photo by Jake Mosher/Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2018)