After completing my Messier poster last year, I decided to attempt to compile a poster of my top 100 favorite astrophotography objects. I am sharing it here for anyone interested. The image is very high resolution - 16000 x 10667.

The images are arranged on the poster according to their position in the night sky, with north to the top and 0 hour right ascension to the right. (0 hour right ascension corresponds to 9 pm transit in November.) The images were all captured from my home in Onalaska, TX. Each image is also posted individually on this Astrobin site. The 100 objects range in size from 0.5 to 180 minutes, and range in declination from +73 to -47 deg. I used two scopes for imaging (130mm and 85mm) with the ZWO ASI1600-MM Cool camera.

Obviously this list is extremely subjective. My criteria was simply to pick objects that would look great together on a poster. In compiling my list, I started by looking at objects on 4 unique catalogues - Messier, Caldwell, Hidden Treasure, and Secret Deep. The last two catalogues are documented in excellent books by Stephen James O'Meara. I then looked at many other sources, including Ruben Kier's fantastic 100 Best Astrophotography Targets book. The breakdown of my image sources are: Messier (25 objects), Caldwell (28), Hidden Treasures (10), and Secret Deep (4). That adds up to 67. Of the remaining images,13 are from Kier's book, which adds up to 80 total. The remaining 20 objects are not included in any of the above sources. I gleaned these 20 objects from various other books, atlases, web sites and magazines.

My list is biased towards nebulae - 68 of the 100 objects on my poster are nebulae. This number is a far greater percentage than those on each of the above lists (Messier has only 12 nebulae, for example). The breakdown of my object types is as follows: 28 Emission Nebulae, 19 Planetary Nebulae, 14 Multiple Galaxies, 12 Single Galaxies, 10 Supernova Remnants, 6 Reflection Nebula, 5 Dark Nebula, 4 Open Star Clusters, and 2 Globular Star Clusters.

I would be interested in your view of those objects which you would have included instead, and also those which you would have left out. Below are 20 other great objects I imaged, but in the end these objects missed my cut and were not included on the poster:

1. NGC 6946 - Fireworks Galaxy

2. NGC 891 - Outer Limits Galaxy

3. Jones 1 Planetary Nebula

4. M11 - Wild Duck Cluster

5. IC 342 - Hidden Galaxy

6. M22 Globular Cluster

7. NGC 672 - Triangulum Galaxy Duo

8. Arp 214 - Wonder Galaxy

9. NGC 4565 - Needle Galaxy

10. NGC 772 - Nautilus Galaxy

11. M5 Globular Cluster

12. M83 - Southern Pinwheel Galaxy

13. M74 - Whirling Galaxy

14. M95 & M96 Leo Galaxy Duo

15. M3 Globular Cluster

16. NGC 2170 - Angel Nebula

17. M100 Galaxy

18. NGC 4725 - Needle Galaxy

19. M109 Galaxy

20. NGC 4244 - Silver Needle Galaxy

I updated this top 100 work in 2020 and again in 2022.