Yeh but they are all old posts and wouldn't explain the huge number of hits, I post a lot of images in a few places and while the hit count increases after a post it's nothing like this, the only other time my image hits went through the roof like this was after my APOD in Sept 08.
The image in question was featured in print in US Astronomy mag in July last year and it was about then that the hit count went up I think

but I never saw a link that would explain it
Mike