It’s been a rough year for AP

[Paul2019]

Hi all, 

 

I figured since it’s been such a rough year for astrophotography that maybe we could have a years showcase thread. 
 

i thought it would be nice if everyone shared their favourite image of the year! 

[Paul2019]

Here’s mine, M31 through a Samyang 135

and DSLR. 

[Elp]

Technically this counts as 2023, might add to it:

More info here:

 

 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Elp

[Kinch]

Pillars of NGC 7822

Imaging telescopes: Takahashi FSQ130ED
Imaging cameras: ASI 2600mm
Mounts: JTW Trident P75

Frames: 
Astrodon Ha         36 x 10' 
Astrodon SII          30 x 10' 
Astrodon OIII        42 x 10'

Total integration  = 18 hours.

[ollypenrice]

Anther Samyang (mosaic) contribution: Orion, with Paul Kummer and Peter Woods.

Olly

[The Lazy Astronomer]

My favourite image tends to be my most recent one, but this year I think the novelty of my first and to only comet from just pips it for the win. Not least because the sky miraculously cleared up for me when it was basically at its closest approach!

It's not been a hugely productive year for finished images owing to weather and other commitments. I must have around 60ish hours worth of part finished projects, so hopefully next year I can get at least some of them completed!!

[Paul2019]

Amazing work guys! Let’s keep it coming 😀

[WolfieGlos]

Initially I was thinking M63, my first target with my new scope back in April.

But given it’s been a rough year, the 54 hours I got on the heart and soul in a 6 panel mosaic is my choice. Better version and details in the link below. 

 

[mcrowle]

Wonderful captures, all!

Looking back through mine there isn’t a telescope deep sky shot that stands out, but I do like this 35mm lens wide field. It contains a bit of everything - bright stars, clusters, emission nebulae, dark nebulae, a supernova remnant, a planet (Mars) and a comet (C/2022 E3 ZTF).

Regards, Mike.

[Paul M]

My only notable achievement through this dreadful year was a nice comet animation of comet C/2020 V2 (ZTF) from way back in January:

 

From this thread:

Watching the Met O's weekly "Deep Dive" weather vid on YouTube today, it looks like there will probably be a westerly influence on UK weather at least until Christmas. No details really but for me "westerly" = cloudy

 

[Mal22]

I’m still fairly new to this but I liked the 12 hour Heart Nebula I did a couple of months ago. I’m told I should make the reds more vibrant, but this has a nice natural feel to me.

[Graham Darke]

This is my favourite of the year. Eskimo nebula NGC2393 in Gemini. TEC140ED ZWO AS662 119x30 seconds with darks and flats

[gorann]

Here in western central Sweden AP has not been too bad. The bright summer up here at 60 °N means that imaging is only possible from late August to early May, but on the other hand nights are long in the winter. I just counted the number of entries (=imaging nights) in my AP diary and it was about 50 so far in 2023, which means about 100 images since I have a Samyang 135 piggybacking on my dual-RASA8 rig. The dual rig also means that I sometimes can gather over 20 hours of RASA data in a night. Not all data have been that great of course but most of it useful.

Hard to chose an image but I decided on this one since it is the first "proper" image taken of this recently discovered SNR in Cepheus. I stumbled on it by accident when I was imaging NGC 7129 and noticed some blue and red filaments near the edge of the image. After some digging I realized it was G107.0+9.0 discovered in 2020 (https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/498/4/5194/5904084). So I decided to image the whole thing and got 11.3 hours of it one night in October. It is quite faint so is easily overlooked unless you image from a dark site with a light bucket like a RASA. On the best nights my SQM shows 21.6 but more often around 21.0 especially now when snow is covering the ground.

Cheers, Göran

[DaveS]

Possibly my favourite so far, HCG 92 AKA Stephan's Quintet captured with the ODK 12 and SX Trius 694 on the DDM 85.

[900SL]

This Andromeda from Crete. Seeing was poor and I was manually dithering a Redcat 51 / 533MCP on a Lightrack 2  tracking mount for 4 hours. Pretty happy with it and my best Andro to date

[900SL]

4 hours ago, DaveS said:

Possibly my favourite so far, HCG 92 AKA Stephan's Quintet captured with the ODK 12 and SX Trius 694 on the DDM 85.

Very nice

[tomato]

For once, I’ll choose a nebula image, M78. The data was captured back in January but recently I managed to do a bit of Photoshop type processing on it to show some of the detail in the bright areas.

[Clarkey]

Although not technically my best, I really like this one. The embryo nebula NGC1333.

[AstroGS]

For many reasons i would pick this from 2023.

 

[mackiedlm]

It has indded been a bad year for AP. But some great images produced above.

While complaining about lack of clear nights on another forum, I was contacted by a guy in Colorado offering to colab with me to help me finish a project. This was the result.

 

[AstroGS]

28 minutes ago, mackiedlm said:

It has indded been a bad year for AP. But some great images produced above.

While complaining about lack of clear nights on another forum, I was contacted by a guy in Colorado offering to colab with me to help me finish a project. This was the result.

 

beautiful!

 

[Clarkey]

7 hours ago, mackiedlm said:

It has indded been a bad year for AP. But some great images produced above.

While complaining about lack of clear nights on another forum, I was contacted by a guy in Colorado offering to colab with me to help me finish a project. This was the result.

 

 

That is a stunning image. Impressive indeed.

[Horwig]

I'll pick this as my favourite for 2023, well it's my only image of 2023. I'm going backwards in this hobby, seems I have to re learn everything with every image