From clouds dancing across the Milky Way to a stunning solar eclipse over Kenya, the annual competition showcasing the mysterious depths of our universe has revealed some incredible images.
West Midlands-based photographer James Woodend beat over a thousand amateur and professional photographers from around the world to win the title of Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2014.
As well as securing the £1,500 ($2,440) top prize, his image takes pride of place in the exhibition of winning photographs opening today at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
The judges were mesmerised by Woodend's shot portraying a vivid green aurora dancing across the Icelandic night sky and reflected symmetrically in the glacial Jökulsarlon lagoon of Vatnajökull National Park.
Competition judge and Royal Observatory Public Astronomer, Dr Marek Kukula said: 'I love the combination of whites and blue in the glacier with the chilly green of the aurora in this wonderfully icy picture.
'We've had some amazing aurora pictures in the competition over the last six years, but this is the first time a photo of the Northern Lights has actually won the Astronomy Photographer of the Year prize.
'We were all completely in awe of the colours and symmetry of James' shot.'
Highly commended images in the other categories and special prizes include a breathtaking view of the Earth taken from the brink of space, with the help of a high altitude balloon launched from Boulder, Colorado by Patrick Cullis.
Another image shows the snaking swirls of super-heated gas on the boiling surface of the sun captured by Alexandra Hart.
Judges were also impressive by a figure silhouetted against the backdrop of a Kenyan savannah skyline and a rarely seen hybrid solar eclipse, taken by Eugen Kamenew from Germany.
A stark yet opulent portrayal of the rock formations of the Wairarapa district in New Zealand, contrasting with the dusty clouds dancing across the Milky Way photographed by Chris Murphy won Sir Patrick Moore prize for Best Newcomer.
The entrants in the Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year category impressed the judges again this year, with 15 year old twins Shishir and Shashank Dholakia from the US being crowned winners.
Their image showed the Horsehead Nebula standing out against the red glow of the background emission nebula, 1500 light-years from Earth.
'This year two things stood out for me while judging: the record-breaking number of 2,500 entries from a truly global community of astrophotographers, and the staggering quality of the images,' said BBC Sky at Night Magazine's Editor Chris Bramley, who is a judge for the competition, said of this year's contest.
'It was regularly hard to believe that many were taken from the surface of the Earth and not a space telescope orbiting our planet.'
Astronomy Photographer of the Year is run by the Royal Observatory Greenwich and BBC Sky at Night Magazine. Now in its sixth year, the competition received a record number of over 2500 entries from 51 countries.
The best of these exceptional photographs are showcased in a free exhibition in the Royal Observatory's Astronomy Centre which is open to the public from 18 September 2014 until 22 February 2015.
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