There are many lovely images here, but I seem to have less time than ever to comment. However...
Adam Block, you know that I love your NGC 3239 images to bits, but I commented on it rather extensively when it was the Astronomy Picture of the Day! So let me just say that I love your "LDN 1622: Dark Nebula in Orion" image, too. I love the dark, blue-black, almost menacing appearance of the thick dark cloud! Note, by the way, how many different nebulae we have here: there is a very dark nebula, of course, but there is also pink emission nebulosity, a whitish reflection nebula and an orange nebula where starlight is reddened by intervening dust.
Note, by the way, how many great portraits there are of various aspects of Orion here! Adam Block's image of a dark nebula in Orion is the first of them. Angus Lau's lovely portrait of the Orion Nebula, looking like a perfect cosmic rose, is the second. Bob Parker's Orion and Iridium Flare, where Orion's Sword seems to have been substituted for a brilliant flying saucer-shaped iridium flare, is the third. Stefano Focosi's brilliant image of the Orion Nebula and the Running Man nebula is the fourth. Note not only the color and brightness difference between the Orion Nebula and the Running Man nebula, but also the "soft texture" of the Running Man nebula, whereas the Orion Nebula is sharply resolved into long "strings" and "tendrils" of nebulosity. That's what the violent ultraviolet blasts of a newborn O6 star will do to a nebula!
The fifth great image of Orion is Ian Polczynski's closeup of the Trapezium area, giving us a good idea of what the Orion Nebula looks like through a telescope.
The sixth great Orion image here is César Fornari's closeup of the inner workings of M42. The sharply increasing brightness of the Trapezium area, as well as the "structural chaos" in there compared with the less chaotic structure of the rest of M42, is very well brought out. I like the softly changing colors, too.
The seventh great Orion image is Wally Pacholka's "Orion Rising over Sedona's Cathedral Butte & Oak Creek". In all Wally Pacholka's images, the starry sky has an incomparably sparkling quality. Also, Wally Pacholka always finds fantastic settings for his images.
The eighth great Orion image is Lynn Hilborn's very fine portrait of M78, a bright reflection nebula in Orion.
The ninth great Orion image is Nicolás Villegas' toffee-colored Orion dustscape, where the Orion Nebula and the Running Man Nebula are shining through like pink and blue highlights.
Perhaps I should also mention Lorenzo Comolli's Sky with and without Milky Way, where Orion is peeking out prominently at the top of this (incredibly impressive!!!!) image.
There are also several great Pleiades images here. I may start off with Lorenzo Comolli again, because you can very clearly see the Pleiades in the same image where you can see Orion. Lorenzo, I'm incredibly impressed at your two images. The amount of structure and detail is incredible. I know that Luigi Fontana, Giosuè Ghioldi and Emmanuele Sordini helped you with the images.
Leonardo Orazi has made a wonderful portrait of the Merope Nebula, where you can not only see the "combed hair" quality of the blue reflection nebula (probably caused by the dust particles lining up along magnetic lines), but also the small bright IC 349 nebula, right next to Merope itself.
Reinhold Wittich has also made a very fine portrait of the Pleiades, where there is a veritable treasure trove of small stars nestled among the big ones (although many of them may be background stars), and where nebulosity is highly resolved and fantastically structured.
Fabiano B. Diniz has shown us the "upside down Pleiades" in a Brazilian sky!
In José Francisco Hdez' image the sky in the entire Pleiades area is awash with light, blue around the Pleiades and pink below Merope and around the bright orange star at top.
There are many other very interesting images here. Paul Haese, I love your Dark Doodad in Musca. I'm too lazy to look it up now, but I know that the blue star is one of the brightest stars in Musca, a typical early type B star. I love the color contrast between the young star and the perhaps twelve billion year old globular.
Bi2L, what a fantastic fireball you captured! I love the contrast between the deep blue sky and the brilliant blue-green meteor.
Greg Parker and Noel Carboni, what an interesting portrait of the Cocoon Nebula that is! That is indeed a good way to bring out the extent and thickness of the dark nebula.
Jesús Carmona de Argila, that's a lovely Sun portrait. It looks to me as if the Sun is "smiling"! I like your inclusion of the Earth for comparison.
Robert Arn, what a mysterious "sky circle" you have photographed. I can see now that I should have included your image among the Orion and Pleiades images.
Wally Pacholka, that is a great Perseus, Cassiopeia and Andromeda picture you have posted here.
I like the crescent Moon images, since I've recently admired the crescent Moon myself, and I love the clever way of making the Moon and Venus seeming to be closer together in the sky than they really are!
And there are a pair of fine solargraph images here, and some great aurora images, particularly the one by Ole Christian Salomonsen (I like the image title, too), an incredible Big Blue Marble, amazing sand dunes on Mars, the Big Dipper upside down, fine images of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a fine image of rarely-photographed cluster M34 is Pereus and a lot more, but I have no more time now...
So thank you, all of you, for your fantastic images!
Ann
. It's a false color image 
