This is the seventh year of the Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year Competition and Exhibition. It's a competition that showcases some of the best astrophotography from around the world, and we're really proud to host it here at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich. Everyone is interested in space in some way or other, but space can seem quite remote, something that's done in observatories on high mountains or by space missions out there in the solar system. Astronomy Photographer of the Year actually shows that anybody can get enrolled, anyone can take amazing pictures of the cosmos, and I think it helps people to feel a connection to the wider universe of which we're all apart. This year we've made a few changes to the competition, so we've actually got more categories than we had last year, and I think that's really helped because this time we can celebrate things that perhaps we weren't able to spotlight before. So one of my favourite categories this year is the Galaxy's category. It's absolutely extraordinary, the effort that some of these astrophotographers have gone to did not only capture these images, but process them and produce these absolutely extraordinary images. In the 2015 competition, what stands out first of all is just how astonishing all of the photographs are really. This is the closest you can get to travelling around the universe without a TARDIS. How some of these shots have been achieved is incredible. And they really do take you to places that you thought would be impossible to reach. Nothing is off limits, galaxies, planets, lovely earth views of the night sky. I think the really important thing about the inside astrophotographer of the year competition is that it allows us to think again about what taking pictures of the sky can be. We've just reviewed a wonderful set of images that have everything from conceptual artistic shots to wonderful scientific detailed images. And I think anyone looking at those images will be inspired to go out and try something different when they're photographing the night sky. That's what's important.