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My old friend Travis Rector is a professional astronomer at the University of Alaska. He's also a gifted astrophotographer, and has made countless stunning images of astronomical objects over his career. If you've been reading my blog for any length of time at all you'll have already seen many of his images, since a lot of news items involve objects he's observed (see Related Posts below for more). And they're all incredible! Like, say, this relatively random one I grabbed from his gallery, a ridiculously beautiful picture showing the interacting spiral galaxies NGC 5426 and NGC 5427:

See what I mean? [Click to galactinate.] I could've shown any of dozens of images like this, and they're all amazing.

He's decided to release a new image every Monday during 2012, putting it in his gallery with a description of what you're seeing. Trust me, you absolutely want to keep track of what he's up to. You can see the latest weekly image on his Facebook page or you can go straight to his gallery.

But I don't recommend it unless you have plenty of time in your schedule. I won't be responsible for people getting lost looking at his work.

Related posts:

- When beauty and science collide
- Another nearly perfect circle in space!
- AAS #15: Travisty of Astronomy
- New pic: SN2011fe in M101