Yet another year is coming to an end. As 2019’s sunset approaches, it is time to look back and ponder how was this year. For us astrophotographers it’s a good opportunity to look back and see how has the hobby production evolved in the year. Have any new techniques been incorporated into the workflow? Any new gear? Any new workarounds, “fiddlings” and solutions? What have we accomplished and what have we learnt?

And, what about the end results - the images themselves? They are, however, at least for me, far from being the unique ultimate goal: it’s much more about the process than just pretty pictures. The knowledge, wonder, friendships, discovery... that is what astroimaging is all about.

Now, about myself: 2019 was a great year! The year begun with the arrival of my Coma Corrector, and therefore, I begun to shoot with my new telescope – for the first time, I had a longer FL system: the 150/750 Newtonian, whose mirrors are figured by Sandro Coletti, and features parts from different Brazilian ATMs. Indeed, I entered a new world, in which the tolerance for errors is a lot tighter compared to my usual wide field camera lenses. However, by no means the wide field work was put aside, and I was really happy to plan and shoot many different images – some of which on really seldom imaged objects, which have never been framed by amateurs as far as I know! I also acquired a new Star Adventurer mount, to have a more portable wide-field (both DSO and landscapes) setup.

Here on AstroBin I posted some 31 images in 2019 including this one. That is, however, just a fraction of my work this year: some of the integration gathered was insufficient to complete a project, some are still to be processed. Several meaningful work has been done by myself “backstage”. Better file handling, backups, storage... The most significant was creating a extensive spreadsheet “database”, from which I log in the information on every “set”/image project. Now I can filter, sort and analyze the data, extracting interesting and hopefully useful information, and plotting the results in a visual manner.

2019 in numbers: I captured 149.1 hours of useful data (already excluding tests and clouded exposures), of which 69% turned out to render OK images. This year’s total useful imaging time was significantly higher than previous ones, which had 87h and 32h on 2018 and 2017, respectively. Unsurprisingly, my most productive optical systems were the 150mm Newtonian (57h) and the 135mm Samyang lens (64h). My most productive month was July, at 40h of integration. During this year’s EBA (Brazilian Astrophotography Meeting, for which I travelled 1200km to the state of Goiás and shared 6 dark nights with some 30 fellow imagers), my 2nd, I gathered 39h of data. However, there is still a lot to be processed: only 48/149h were published here, and I have some 35h to pre-process! I plan to process all this data in this off-season (rainy Summer here in Brazil), as well as mastering the software PixInsight and improving my skills.

A noteworthy event was the identification of a Reflection Nebula candidate with my great friend Maicon Germiniani in February, the “Firefly Nebula”. I was honored and excited to work in this identification, and hope more joint projects as this one arises.

Furthermore, in 2019 I also presented the talk “Amateur Astrophotography: The Science and Art of Imaging the Cosmos” at the Astronomy and Geophysics Institute, and at the Mathematics and Statistics Institute, both at University of São Paulo. I was also invited to present a workshop, part of a public outreach activity program in July, at OAM-IAG/USP. In 2020 I plan to continue to share the beauty of astrophotography with more people!

This year I strengthened great bonds with my fellow astro-friends, be it through “gAstronomical” meetings, Skype calls or at the EBA. And that is what I think astroimaging should be all about: sharing this wonderful journey, together.

As far as images, these are my “best picks” of the year. However not all of them are already posted here – can you stop which ones are still to be published?

Finally, it’s propitious time to ask and reflect: How was 2019? And what are the plans for 2020? I ask you all these questions, as I have asked myself - comments are more than welcome! Wish you all a harmonious, prosperous, productive and enjoyable 2020, with many imaging opportunities, friendships, achievements and clear skies!

Happy New Year!