In September last year, I got mightily excited when the results of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition were announced. The winning picture was the rather awesome Blazing Bristlecone by Tom Lowe. Well, now it’s your turn to see if you can top that. The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, together with Flickr and Sky at Night magazine has just opened Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2011 for entries.

There are four categories to which you can submit your pictures: Earth and Space, Our Solar System, Deep Space, and Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year (if you’re under 16). There are also three special prizes: People and Space, Best Newcomer, and Robotic Scope Image of the Year. So plenty of opportunity, then.

I suppose that you want to know what prizes are on offer? Well, the overall winner banks £1,500; category winners take home £500; and there’s £350 for special prize winners.

If you want to enter, you do so via Flickr, and you’ve until 13 July 2011, but all the details are on the competition website.

And if you’ve not yet been to see the exhibition of last year’s entries, you can still do that until 27 February, at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

(Image: Blazing Bristlecone, by Tom Lowe.)