Since you have photographed the Moon, Chris, I must immediately comment on the fantastic, though sad, Moon face by Marco Ludwig. Please note that there are two sad Moon faces here! Not only is the entire Moon suffering from the blues, even though it is red. The Lady in the Moon is also in a funk.
And it is perhaps not so surprising that the Moon is sad, considering it is being eaten by the Sacra di San Michele! Just check out Stefano de Rosa's images!
One of my favorite images in this thread is Tom Munnecke's Falling in Love with the Universe. The girl is standing in a brownish, dark nebula dust-colored Earthly landscape (well, apparently she's on a beach)
. And there in the middle of the image is this amazing electric sea blue/turquoise light. If it weren't so elongated, I'd say that it was the most fantastic blue solar flash that I've ever seen in a photograph. Well, whatever it is, it looks fantastic!Speaking about dusty brown and blue, I'm fascinated by Leonardo Orazi's beautiful van den Bergh nebulae in Cepheus, too. Talk about a combination of brown and blue! But Leonardo, I can't figure out what those stars are - my software isn't really willing to come up with an obvious star pattern in Cepheus that matches your image. Can you identify at least one of your stars?
Michael Deger, I love your small planetary nebula Abell 12 in Orion. It sure looks as if the planetary was just some sort of telescope reflection of that bright star, Mu Orionis, a fourth magnitude A-type star. But the nebula is for real, I've checked it out!
There are many nice M33 images here. I particularly like Michael Hancock's closeup of the amazing NGC 604 star forming region.
poti, I really like your image of the nebulae produced by fascinating B0 star Gamma Cassiopeia. The colors in your picture are subtle but beautiful. The background is bursting with background strs, which is fitting for a star seen in front of the band of the Milky Way. Interestingly, I note that the background stars close to Gamma Cassiopeia itself are often bluish, whereas stars further away from the bright star don't ever seem to be that blue! (This doesn't have to be a photographic mistake, because it could be that we are seeing a small association of young blue stars right behind Gamma Cas. It is interesting, nevertheless!)
And speaking about a sky bursting with stars, Yuri Beletsky's Milky Way over the VLT is very beautiful, too. And what about Manuel Jung's Southern Cross image? Talk about an embarrassment of riches of stars! Millions and millions! (I think I can hear the Stanley Yelnats family looking at the treasure towards the end of the movie Holes: Millions!)
Donald Waid, I like your Iris Nebula. We see both the lovely blue reflection nebula and the more elusive pink emission nebulosity.
And while I usually don't look much at pictures of planetary nebulae...that is a lovely Little Dumbbell seen from the Pic du Midi Observatory. It looks like some exotic butterfly to me. The details are sharp and the colors very pleasing.
The Little Dumbbell Nebula isn't the only object that has been photographed from the Pic du Midi Observatory. That's a lovely Jupiter, too. I appreciate seeing Jupiter through different filters, too. Tell me, is that Io? Or maybe Ganymede?
Speaking about pure beauty, I love Tony Licata's sundog picture. What a lovely autumn picture! Look at those flaming red leaves, the jewel-green grass and the blue and milky white sky and the sundogs. Beautiful!
Thanks to everybody who contributed pictures here!
Ann