http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19637073
Well worth a watch, there's some lovely shots in there and it's free admission until 5th Feb 2013 at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, London (http://www.rmg.co.uk/royal-observatory/).
I completely agree, some of those pictures are amazing. It must be lovely to be so talented with a camera :)
Unfortunately many of the deep space photos are more Photoshop work the camera work as there is nothing but a Orange milky soup when you take the photo with 2 + hours exposure from anywhere on earth due to all of the light pollution.
Some of the compositional shots are very good! You don't need a whopper of a lens to get a good view of the heavens and 50mm sharp prime can get you some awesome shots.