While we're big fans of images of the very small, as brought to us by the Nikon Microscopy Competition, we also admire the really big. And each year, that comes courtesy of the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition. This year's winners were recently announced and have gone on display at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, UK. But if you can't make it to London, you can get a taste for what you're missing below.

Astronomy images span a phenomenal range scale, from things that would fit neatly on Earth (like comets or features on local bodies) to the mind-bogglingly large (like stellar nurseries or entire galaxies). And we frequently observe these objects by using wavelengths the human eye can't see. So there's a lot of room for artistic choices about how to make these things both understandable and beautiful. In many cases, this year's winners have also humanized things by placing the night sky in context, framed by other figures admiring it or nestled among familiar-looking landscapes.

We've only taken a small sampling of the photos that have won their category or were commended by the judges. So, if you'd like to see more, follow any of the credit links for the images above, and they'll take you to one of the competition's winners' pages. There's plenty more if you take the time to hop categories there.

Listing image by Mark Hanson, Warren Keller, Steve Mazlin, Rex Parker, Tommy Tse, David Plesko, Pete Proulx