On the first day of the new year, NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day published University of Arizona astronomer and astrophotographer Adam Block's 50th image on that site.

Block's photo of the Fireworks Galaxy (NGC 6946) was taken with the telescope atop the Santa Catalina Mountains at the UA Mount Lemmon SkyCenter.

It was momentous for him, he said, not just because it was the first APOD picture of 2011, but also because it came only two days after his previous post of a cosmically nearby nebula (NGC 2170).

APOD has a searchable archive where you can find his other works. Astronomy fans also can likely expect more space shots from Block, whose images have been posted by APOD for 11 years.