First light image for the 'new to me' Esprit 150 from my back yard.   I hesitated for months to sling this scope because I was waiting for the opportunity to pick up a new mount capable of slinging it's weight.   Hesitantly, I finally decided to sling it on the EQ6R-Pro.   Thankfully there was no wind... because the EQ6 handled it like a pro, guiding performance was the best I've ever seen out of it, averaging 0.3" rms all night, and as low as 0.27".    What really blew me away was the first few subs out of this project came in around 1.4 arc second FWHM, absolutely blown away by the current seeing conditions in my back yard!! Of course those conditions didn't persist however I still averaged around 1.7 to 1.9 arc second for the whole project. Prior to slinging this scope, I really didn't think my sky conditions were THAT good. I knew I had a few good nights on occasion, but I certainly didn't expect this.    As a result of this exceptional seeing, the stars in the stacks were unfortunately kind of blocky, so I spent the time an drizzled the data in order to get nice circular stars. I didn't really expect to gain much detail in the nebulosity, but it actually seemed to pay off marginally.   I gained a bit more detail/depth in the small dust clouds surrounding the Herbig Haro objects near IC 5070.   As a result, I ended up keeping the drizzled resolution for the final image.   To an untrained eye, you may never notice, but for me the loss of details in certain areas convinced me to keep it.   In an effort to keep the focus on the details, I opted to crop the image down substantially.   If you'd like to see the full frame, check out that revision here: https://www.astrobin.com/pli5hq/E/

Unlike other images, no matter how much I wanted to process for an RGBHSO version of this image, I just couldn't create the depth that the basic SHO palette provides.   I decided to stick with the SHO, and since there were no substantial reflection elements in this FOV, I didn't feel like I lost anything of value.

This scope has already blown me away and I'm considering trading out both my Esprit 100's in favor of another Esprit 150.   With the 0.77x reducer, it samples just under 1 arc second and increases the speed of the scope to F/5.4!    Next project I'm already working on is Triangulum (M33) and that level of detail has already far surpassed my expectations!

The focal point of the image is Herbig Haro 555.   So far I've been unable to find many larger scopes shooting this region, and as such I can't seem to find an image that matches this level of detail.   If you know of any highly detail images of this region, I'd love to see them, let me know please.

In this area, we have HH's 563, 564, and 565. The detail isn't quite as crisp here as I'd like, it's probably due to the Sii stack being a little softer around 2.0 arc second, and probably a slight lack of integration. What I really find cool about this region though is I'm starting to pick up the 'haze' coming off the arm (top right). I'm not sure if this is something that's normally captured, but I think it's pretty neat. I've only seen this kinda haze captured in space telescopes.

What do you guys think? Is the Esprit 150 a winner? Just wait until you see the M33 image that's coming down the pipe!