My first pic in "Sky And Telescope"!!

This day, 2nd August, '08 will be cherished by me as the day my first astrophoto got picked in the gallery of "Sky And Telescope", a very well known and respected magazine in the astronomy circles; and it's photo gallery, a coveted place..

I have clicked many photos before, both general and astro; however, never submitted one anywhere. I used to, and still do, look at friends with photos in this gallery with respect; though always thought I had sometime before I could get to that level of expertise, or rather creativity more appropriately. It indeed takes a lot more than just a fancy camera to take a good photograph. I don't consider myself much more than an amateur photographer, in both earthly and heavenly matters!

Yesterday we (members of college astro club) had great fun viewing and photographing the eclipse. (previous post on this blog) I (I'm sure greysith and others who took photos too) sat up till late last night editing (minor touching up to compensate for over exposure etc) and more importantly discarding some 470 photos in all of the event, and finally keeping 48 of them in my personal archive!

Today morning, I decided I must submit a couple of those supposedly good photographs; by my personal standards of course! to "Sky And Telescope", or SnT as it is popularly known. Ten minutes later, and with a lot of enthusiasm and hope, I had finally picked my entries from my collection; two photos which I thought were up to the mark. I logged on to the site, and went to the submission area - oh my god! to my pleasant surprise, greysith's photo was already there!! The fact that he hadn't called me to tell of this could mean only one thing - he didn't know himself that his photo was chosen!! Was this possible?! I decided I shall submit my photos and call him to congratulate. I submitted my photos, and as he was online, started chatting. I congratulated him, and as expected he asked me dumbfounded "how do you know it's picked??" Dolt fellow didn't even know his pic was selected in SnT!! he asked me to link him, so I promptly clicked on the link to the gallery page in my browser - oh my god again! One of my submitted photos was also there!! This was just crazy - my photo was in SnT's gallery!! Just five minutes after I had submitted it!! I quickly copied the link and pasted it for him to see, and frantically typed in, no literally punched in my keyboard "my pic is also picked!!" By now he had seen it, and at that very moment, I could just "feel" it, we were simultaneously overjoyed!! Both of us were thrilled for our photo was in this gallery, and both of us were equally jumping in the air because of each other's photo being picked too!! It was somehow like a combined effort, though not technically, but more so.. emotionally.. yes; I'm sure he was surged with emotions too..

here's the link to my proud little recognition:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/gallery/skyevents/26053689.html

This has really made me and greysith both resolve with even more determination to go all the way to Surat for viewing the 22nd July '09 eclipse, which would be seen as a total one from there.
Earlier opportunities of eclipse viewing (and of course photographing) include the 26th January '09 solar eclipse; and the lunar eclipse on 16th of this month, both of which would be seen as partial ones from Pune.

Hoping to get some good pictures of these events too..