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This year saw a record number of photos sent to Greenwich for the Astronomy Photographer of the Year. The pictures came from over fifty countries. Winners will be announced on September 17 - I hope to be there - but meanwhile we can see some of the entries that have made it through to the final judging. The categories are "Earth and Space", "Our Solar System", "Deep Space" and for under-16s "Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year".

Here is a beautiful nebula formed by the stellar winds of a massive star.

You can read here about last year's Astronomy Photographer of the Year.

There are also photos here from several previous years.

In this photo by Stephen Banks the Milky Way rises above a dark sky site off the coast of Dorset, England. The stone arch has eroded in a similar way to that in Monet's painting of "La Porte d'Amont, Étretat” .

Here's an unusual view of a solar eclipse - it's seen through the eruption of a famous geyser: Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park.

Another shortlisted photo for this year's competition. This one was shot in northern Colorado - it shows the streak of a Geminid meteor against a beautiful dark sky. You can see Orion on the left of the picture and Jupiter in Taurus to the left of center.

I have never seen a photo anything like this one taken in a cave in Iceland - with an aurora glowing through a small patch where the roof has caved in.

Ingólfur Bjargmundsson has taken a fascinatingly beautiful picture. I certainly hope that it gets a prize. I'm looking forward to seeing the winners announced in Greenwich tonight, and a preview of the exhibition.

The overall winner in this year's competition was James Woodend of the Uk for his Icelandic aurora picture. In the background is the Vatnajökull Glacier.

At the awards ceremony all of the winning entries were featured in a video projected in the planetarium. This image looked very pale in that and I was impressed with its realism. A weak aurora - to the human eye - has no color. The version of this photo shown in the exhibition is actually quite green. The one that I've pinned is somewhere between the two in color. It's still a stunning view.

There's a serene aurora, both a violent Sun and an eclipsed one, a stellar nursery and a stellar graveyard, and many more wonderful pictures. The Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2014 winners were announced last week and you can see all of them.

Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2014

All of the winning photographs are on display in Greenwich and online. In fact, on this page you can see the winners of all the previous competitions too. For anyone who will be visiting the London area, the exhibition will be open until February 22, 2015. And it's free.