Comparison of 1st year of astrophotography

What can you learn in your first year of astrophotography .... well, a picture (in this case 6) is worth a 1000 words .... Here is a comparison of my very first astrophotos, fully processed to my abilities when I took them on the left one year ago to the ones I took over the past month and fully processed.

Make sure you view a Larger Version so you can see just how awful my first ones were :-) (though at the time I was happy that I was getting anything)

Yes, I have upgraded equipment, which definitely helps, but technique and processing skills have greatly increased as well.

I have cropped and adjusted the scale so they are comparable in size for comparison purposes, otherwise, no additional editing was done on the photos from my processing a year ago (ugh!)

This comparison just goes to show what a learning curve this hobby has and how much progress you can make in just one year if you keep at it! Hopefully this can encourage some of you just starting out and getting frustrated with what you are getting compared to those who have been doing it for many years!!!