What Was Your Best Astrophoto of 2012?

[mrlovt]

I'm very new to this, and am using Jupiter as my main target for learning planetary imaging. It's bright and convenient. Here's my best one so far. No GRS, dim moon, but at least the seeing was good!
Jup_R_203313_Aaron_Lovett.jpg

[froesccn]

Well it is a bit silly to post it again, but ... since I took my first and until now only astrophoto in the morning of December 30th, I suppose it technically goes here

[Alan Sheppard]

To post it again - Not silly at all, it is a good image!

Alan

[KeithBC]

Great thread, and great images everyone!

I have been learning PixInsight, and starting to get decent results from it. My best of 2012 was also my most recent: Oct 6th. I basically haven't seen the sky since then, aside from a couple of isolated evenings when I had meetings to go to.

M33:
20121006-M33.jpg

[che]

This is the year I taught myself AP. What really hooked me was getting my Transit of Venus Photo published in the print edition of England's "Astronomy Now" Magazine. Everything else has been a steep learning curve of stacking, alignment, and finding DSO's.

[IMG][/IMG]

This image got a lot of attention on the internet. I shot it in my neighborhood which is brimming with the whose-who of high tech. Many of my neighbors work for Google, Facebook, Flickr and Twitter. I had a crowd gathered around my telescope that day who were busy broadcasting what I was doing on Twitter. A few days later, it was picked up by a local blog with this nice story. I'm now a contributor to this blog and appointed neighborhood "BASA" astronomer:

Transit of Venus AND Sutro Tower Serendipitously Photographed from Bernal Hill | Bernalwood

In August, this photo was selected for print publication in England's "Astronomy Now" magazine. Heck, they even paid me for it, 15 British Pounds! Still, I'm honored I made the grade.

[IMG][/IMG]

What a wonderful and fantastic way to start a new passion. I took my first astro image just a few months prior to this event. Needles to say, I'm completely hooked and am looking forward to a wonderful future with both photography and amateur astronomy.

[Alan Sheppard]

Keith,

That photo is great. Short and sweet!

Alan

[Alan Sheppard]

Cliff,

Quite an excellent photo!

Should Venus be a little more distinct? Just me, from memory a transit is a little more defined.

Alan

[CruisingTheCosmos]

Great images, everyone!

Still starting out as well, but I'd have to say this one:


Milky Way Dust Lanes by DanM_07, on Flickr

I have that as my desktop background, and every single time I look at it I'm amazed. Our galaxy is just so wondrous!

[che]

@ Alan, it should of been and was on many of the other photos I took that day. This was an unplanned and lucky shot, I wasn't expecting the sun to align with Sutro Tower, which occurred right a the end of the event. In fact, I almost packed up and went home before Sutro appeared in the telescope, I was wind blown and freezing that day. We can take all the spectacular and technically perfect astro photos we want, however, they'll never approach the quality of a Hubble image which is the real competition, and available to anyone for free on the internet. My photography goal for 2013 is to get more earthbound scenery in my astro-photos, even if it's a tree in the foreground. It's the only way I can think of differentiating our work form the abundance excellent and stunning astro photography out there.

[werdna]

Here is mine


My xmas present was an 80mm orion and eq6, so hopefully can get some deep space photos this year