There are very many lovely images here
, but I don't have that much time to wrote comments!
VegaStar Carpentier, I like your red lenticular cloud, and even more your Full Wolf's Moon Celestial! (But where's the wolf?)
Philippe TOSI, your Milky Way closeups are extremely beautiful. I love how you manage to bring out so many details and so many clusters here. For example, in the second image great open cluster M11 is plainly there at center left!
M. Raşid Tuğral, you have captured the gradual "rising" of Venus against a very beautiful evening sky.
Gimmi Ratto, that's a very fine portrait of the Witch Head Nebula, and I'm impressed at your dedication.
Sergio, I absolutely love your portrait of NGC 3532, which is surely one of the most impressive open clusters in the moderately nearby galaxy. You bring out the splendid richness of this young cluster in the fantastic constellation Carina. (And I just have to say... I love your portrait of yourself and your daughter, too.)
Manuel Jimenez, you manage to give your portrait of NGC 7331 an amazing depth by bringing out the interstellar flux nebula (as I think that the faintg nebulosity that is spread over much of the image is called). When you talk about "tidal", do you mean what looks like a faint tidal stream extending from the left side of the galaxy?
Randy Shivak, that silhouette of a plane(?) seen against the disk of the Sun is rather amazing!
Seantos, that's a very American building or windmill or something. I don't know what it is exactly, but I like the look of it. As for the starry background, I can see the Andromeda galaxy and what looks like the Alpha Persei moving group and perhaps the Double Cluster in Perseus.
And that is an unusually lovely portrait of the Moon. I love the sharp details in combination with the not-too-sharp contrasts. The beige-dark gray color seems so perfectly right. I love the Lady in the Moon in your picture! Look at her Adam's apple to the upper left of the large impact crater Tycho surrounded by white rays!
Vegastar, I can see the Lady's Adam's apple in your image, too.
Angus Lau, I completely love your portrait of NGC 1763! Note how impressive this star forming region is. Note how the rich central cluster has blown a hole around itself, and note how star formation is still going on in several places around the central cluster, though mostly to the lower left of it.
I once saw a picture of this magnificent star forming region with no caption explaining what it was. I decided that it couldn't be a Milky Way object, because I had never seen it before even though it was a well-resolved, optical object. I therefore concluded that it was probably a star forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. That is exactly what it is, too, but it is slightly "detached" from the main body of the LMC, and it is on the opposite side from the Tarantula Nebula. Therefore this object is probably one of the most overlooked massive star formation regions in the Local Group. So thank you so much, Angus Lau, for showing us this magnificent object in all its splendor!
And thank you, Jerry Lodriguss, for showing us owlice in celestial flight in the constellation Cassiopeia. How colorful she is!
Tim Carruthers and Jason Jennings, thank you so much for your beautiful portrait of the small but lovely emission-reflection nebula complex IC1283-4!
And Marco Angelini, Fabio Tagliani and Francesco Antonucci, thank you so much for your incredibly beautiful portrait of the M81 galaxy!
And thank you so much, all the rest of you who contributed images to this thread!
Ann
Milky Way in Prescott, AZ.
First full moon in 2012
