Astonishing astronomy pictures revealed in London awards shortlist

The mountains of Tibet stand aloft in this striking scene, captured opportunistically when the photographer noticed the alignment between the peaks, the Milky Way and this bend in the road near Ranwu.

Captured above Elk Grove, California, this image shows how the magnetic field of the sun pulls up portions of the chromosphere following a large solar flare. With colour added to enhance the aesthetic of the image, the exposure was made in black and white and processed to highlight the contrast of the scene. According to the entry notes, “the photographer is pleased with the way the processing shows the nature of the Sun in a naturally blue sky while preserving close to the proper hydrogen-alpha tones.”

The striking entrance gate to Luna Park, a Sydney amusement park that closed in 1979, forms the dramatic centrepiece of this image. Over 3,000 images of just over a second were taken to merge the stars in the sky, with the foreground shot during one of the few times in the early morning when its illuminations are extinguished, allowing a long exposure to be possible. 

Shot over La Palma, near Murcia, Spain, this image gives an impressively detailed view of Saturn, as seen through a 500mm Cassegrain telescope. The planet's distinctive belts can be seen on the surface, while the ring divisions of Cassini and Encke are also rendered clearly.

Shot in broad daylight, this image shows the International Space Station transiting a just-illuminated moon crescent. It was shot with two cameras mounted on two telescopes – one monochrome video and one colour still – with the resulting frames blended to give the best of luminance and the true colour of the scene.

The ancient village of Hungcun with a dramatic night sky is atmospherically rendered in this image, shot at the foot of Huangshan Mountain, China. 

A four-image view of a Martian sunset captured by the Curiosity Rover in 2015 was selected from some 390,000 images in the JPL-Caltech/NASA project archive. The blue light reflects the ability of the colour to penetrate the red dust of the surface. The Annie Maunder Prize for Image Innovation is a part of the award that allows "images incorporating data captured by organisations (e.g. NASA), but processed by the Entrant.”  

Outside Wuwei City, China, is the Tenegger Desert, where a group of sculptures – such as this one, comprised of metal rods that face the sky – give a novel portal to the stars. In this 8-second exposure the light from the stars is strong enough to illuminate the metal of the rods. 

Due to the intense light of the Russian port city of Murmansk, capturing the aurora borealis is difficult. The photographer behind this shot had to wait for a powerful flare of the phenomena to be able to render both it and the city below in a single shot. 

Shot above Mayhill, New Mexico, this image of the Messier 57 nebula was shot over a total of 63 hours of exposures on three different dates using a series of filters to reveal the petal-like structure. According to the image notes, “This image was taken with hydrogen (red) and oxygen (green and blue) filters, but also adding nitrogen (deep red). The unusual nitrogen filter allows the photographer to better reveal the inner fine structure as well as in the external petals.”

The distinctive sea arch of Dorset's Durdle Door is the setting for this shot of the Milky Way. To counteract the streaking caused by the Earth's rotation over long exposures, the galaxy was captured using a star tracker, with the foreground shot in a separate static exposure.

Captured on a very clear Autumn night, this affluent district of Shanghai is prone to light pollution, but in clear weather the stars can still be photographed. This image was captured using 305 fifteen-second exposures. 

Showing a fragment of the iconic Veil Nebula, this remnant of a supernova was captured using an array of narrowband filters. The processing involved a bicolour photo colourised using monochrome images shot with hydrogen-alpha and oxygen filters. 

Shot by 13 year-old Kush Chandaria from Notting Hill, London, this image of the Soul Nebula was processed from 14.4 hours of exposures using narrowband filters. 

Compressed on a 400mm telephoto lens, this shot of the Lovell Telescope in Cheshire and the rising moon captures the iconic installation bathed in the light of the setting sun. 

Periodic illumination was the challenge the photographer faced whilst trying to image the Château de Chambord in Loire. Images were made during the gaps in the lights, then merged – including that of the Château's reflection. 

The island of Menorca was designated as a Starlight Reserve in 2019. Shot using six exposures, the light pollution from Mallorca, the neighbouring island, gives an intentionally warm hue to the image. 

Shot over St Arnaud, Australia, this image shows the vibrant Flame Nebula, part of the constellation of Orion, which is believed to earn its impressive 'glow' from the neighbouring star Alnitak shines ultraviolet light into the Flame.

Utilising the narrow window of time when the sun can be observed rising over Shanghai's central business district from this perspective, the photographer's 4 exposures show the orb of the sun moving through the heavily polluted air. 

One of the highlights of the recent night sky, NEOWISE lights the sky above Stonehenge, Wiltshire. With light pollution from the nearby villages – and the fortuitous passing of a lorry casting light on the stones – the photographer notes that the last time the comet passed Earth, Stonehenge didn't exist. 

Using imagery from the Solar Dynamics Laboratory, the creator of this image wanted to demonstrate the turbulence found inside our sun by combining, and blending, three wavelengths of light.

A spiral galaxy 65 million light years away, this image was captured from a telescope installation above Coquimbo, in a total of 34 hours exposure time. The galaxy is so far away, when the light that makes this image left the galaxy for Earth, T. rex was still alive.

Photographed above Los Angeles, this image – created using multiple monochrome exposures using a hydrogen-alpha filter – shows a sunspot, and creates an image of the chromosphere halo around the sun. 

Uncannily evoking its namesake cetacean, this 'perfect cosmic bubble' is the Dolphin Head Nebula in Canis Major. It was captured from Chile during a period of poor conditions, an assembled from just 1.5 hours of exposure. 

A mixture of water motion, star trails and the beginning of the display of the aurora borealis, this image was merged together from a series of exposures from a very cold evening in Swedish Lapland. 

A majestic panorama across a wide-field of the NGC 6188 SHOrgb, this image was produced by the Cielaustral team of astronomers who used a specialised homemade telescope and 253 hours of exposure. According to the image notes the team ‘acquired both narrowband images in hydrogen-alpha, doubly ionised oxygen (OIII) and singly ionised sulphur (SII) spectral lines as well as natural colour images using red, green and blue filters.’

A striking shot viewed through an ice cave in Iceland, this image comprises two exposures – one shot inside the cave, another to record the aurora outside. 

A star trails image created using 247 25-second exposures over the lake of Dugi Otok, in Croatia.  

A snapshot from the southern sky, the Dark Molecular Cloud found in the constellation Corona Australis, shot above Victoria, Autralia, was created from a total of over 82 hours of exposure. 

Made from 21 hours of total exposure, this image shows the comet 2020F8 SWAN, another highlight of 2020's skies – though not one enjoyed by the northern hemisphere. By the time the comet appeared above the Equator it had disintegrated. This image was captured over Namibia.

Featuring both the Milky Way and light pollution from nearby Tehran, this shot of Mount Damavand in Iran was created at the end of a seven hour hike, outside the village of Nandal. 

A striking view of the moon's transit across the Parisian rooftops presented many challenges in terms of timing, to ensure the correct path of the moon through the image. The photographer states “the woman standing on the roof appears to be the link between the city and the sky.” 

Photographed from Wimbledon, London and comprising some 3,000 stacked frames, this shot shows the crater Clavius around the time of the quarter moon. 

The Pleiades, deep-sky stars of particular brilliance were captured here above Punjab, India in winter over an exposure time of 3 hours. 

‘The Full Moon in July is called the ‘Thunder Moon’ because of the frequency of thunderstorms,’ according to the image notes for this shot – which was captured above towerblocks in Moscow during a period of particularly clear weather. 

Comprised of 250 images to create a panorama, the photographer who captured this view of Vik, Iceland shot the aurora panorama first, then shot himself out on the ice, merging the images together. 

Showing the Andromeda galaxy in a way that fills the view of the image was the aim of the photographer with this photograph, shot above the county of Somogy in Hungary.