This year's shortlist for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year has been released, and the images are truly out of this world.
More than 3,500 entries from 58 countries were sent in this year to the Royal Observatory Greenwich’s Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, which meant that the panel of expert judges had quite a task creating a shortlist.
Among the 30 extraordinary images that they selected is an image of an aurora in the shape of a dragon, taken during a geomagnetic storm at the Arctic Henge, Iceland; an abandoned house below the Milky Way in the middle of the Namib Desert; the Milky Way above the Roques de García in the Las Cañadas caldera, Tenerife; and a 62-second-long solar eclipse captured in Western Australia. Below are some of our favourites.
This aurora takes the form of a dragon. Photographed by Carina Letelier Baeza, was the result of a G2 level geomagnetic storm and was captured at the Arctic Henge in Iceland.
Another dragon in aurora form, this time captured by Moritz Tesler, who chose to use black and white to emphasise the contrast of the aurora against the dark sky.
This image shows an abandoned house in the middle of the Namib Desert with the Milky Way above it. Stefan Liebermann produced this image by using a star tracker to lower the ISO.
Yoshiki Abe visited the active peak of Nakadake in the Kumamoto Prefecture of Japan to snap this image. It shows how the Milky Way has watched over Earth since prehistoric times.
The Milky Way and the Roques de Garciá, a formation in Tenerife, were gloriously captured by Andrea Curzi.
Jakob Sahner took this photograph of the Geminid meteor shower during perfect conditions in La Palma.
Both category and overall winners will be announced on September 12, with an exhibition of winners and shortlisted images opening at the National Maritime Museum, London SE10, on September 14 (currently, there is a show of last year’s competition, closing on August 27).
An accompanying book, Astronomy Photographer of the Year, Collection 13, will be published alongside the new exhibition (Collins, £30).
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