To kick off the New Year, I’d like to summarise my “365 astronomy days”:

BecausetheNight

2010 has been the first full year for my blog and I had very good time in sharing my images, thoughts and ideas with people aroun the world . Here are some stats:

• Visits: the blog was viewed about 41,000 times in 2010.
• In 2010, there were 186 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 321 posts.
• The busiest day of the year was November 11th, thanks to my second APOD featured on the NASA web site, totalising 1,634 visits!
• The most visited post of the year has been: “Moon and Venus….and….an incredible sunrise….above a sea of clouds“, published on 5 November, with 1,028 visits.
• The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, stumbleupon.com, antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov, apod.nasa.gov, and us.peeplo.com.
• The most visited page has been “MOON” with 786 visits.

Astrophotography

This year has been very productive and enjoyed very much taking picures of terrestrial and sky wonders   Below are the hilights of my year of astrophotography:

• 2 images featured as “Astronomy Picture of the Day” on the NASA web site: ” Not a Blue Moon” and “Two Views, Two Crescents“
• 1st place (“Sky of Aloysius Lilius” category) of the 1st  Photography contest “Aloysius Lilius”
• 5 images featured as EPOD on the NASA website
• 5 images featured as LPOD
• 2 images featured on the front-page of Spaceweather.com: #1, #2
• 1 image selected as notable photo for International Earth and Sky Photo Contest organized by TWAN
• 1 image displayed at the “The Atmosphere Exposed” exhibition (Boyden Gallery – St Mary’s City – US)
• Interview with “1st Angel” online magazine
• Several publications on national and international magazines and websites.

 Music

• “Song of the Day archive” opened during the year
• I have attended to concerts of my favourite group the Arcade Fire: in Bologna and Lyon 

Goals for 2011

• Photograph a Lunar and/or Solar eclipse;
• Try for a Messier Marathon;
• Dedicate more time to time-lapse videos and startrails picures;
• An exhibition of my pictures.

I got the occasion to thank all those that supported me during this year and give you my best wishes for a stellar 2011 !!