check it out:

Every year, more and more images become available of astronomical objects. And every year I try to pick my favorite ten to post here at the year’s end (check out 2007 and 2006). This year, the ten I have chosen have a significant distance bias; they lean toward being very close. But don’t fret: they range in distance literally from the closest to the farthest objects we can see.

Probably a bit more on the nerdy site but there's some good ones in there.

some nice pix there but also some pretty ordinary ones. i'm sure the story behind the boring pix is pretty cool but they are still pretty boring pics compared to what's been released this year... like the crecent moon (#9) & the grb n such.

yeh, that's what I meant by nerdy; you gotta read about why they're cool instead of just looking and going PHWOAR!

i'm sure the story behind the boring pix is pretty cool but they are still pretty boring pics

Yep that's pretty much the correct attitude if you are planning to completely miss the point :)

As hinted, the picture is only half the story. NASA and the astronomers out there aren't spending their whole careers trying to produce wallpaper :) Even a highly noisy and pixelated image that's boring at first glance is incredibly interesting if just a couple of those pixels are direct evidence of a planet outside our solar system, as shown in the second last pic.

Nice collection of images.

For those with small attention spans