Over the coming weeks we will feature, in no particular order, each of the final 16 selected images and winners will be announced by Royal Museums Greenwich on 17 September. The winning images are to be showcased at the Royal Observatory Greenwich in an exhibition opening 18 September.
Our tenth nomination from the prestigious Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition, an annual celebration of the most beautiful and spectacular visions of the cosmos by astrophotographers worldwide. The 2015 competition received 2700 spectacular entries from over 60 countries and the winners will be announced 17 September.
For lunar and planetary enthusiasts, the only naked-eye planet of the evening sky is distant and tiny Mars in the constellation of Taurus. But if you’re prepared to be an early riser, the dawn sky is where you’ll find two of the solar system’s heavyweights, Jupiter and Saturn, getting up close with the Moon on 27 and 29 March, respectively.
New stars are formed in the undulating clouds of M8, also commonly referred to as the Lagoon Nebula. This image by Ivan Eder is one of the shortlisted images in this year’s Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition.