Can I safely exclude sleepimage from OS X backups

Question

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Can I safely exclude sleepimage from OS X backups

I am using Chronosync to make a complete bootable backup of my OS X 10.6.4 machine to an external USB drive. It takes a LONG time (even incrementals) and part of the problem is the 8GB sleepimage. Can I safely exclude this from the backup? I realize that in case of a disaster requiring the use of the cloned drive, I would not be able to wake the Mac from sleep, but would need to reboot, but the point is to not have to reinstall all of my work from a Time Machine backup.

Thanks, Ralph