I know I've said it before, but galaxy season is a bit of a pull for wider field scopes like the Esprit 100.    Sharpness with this scope should never be underestimated, I've seen quality that rivals 10 inch reflectors quite often, with FWHM's in the low 2 arc second range.   There's a reason I love them and chose to buy a second one to work side by side.   They're the hands down the perfect back yard scope for my conditions and seeing. 

Now that also implies that I should have good seeing, and quite frankly, this winter has sucked! The weather and clouds have been miserable, and on the few clear nights I've had, I walk out side look up and sing twinkle twinkle little star in my head!  Almost all of this data is well over 3 arc second sampling, so you can imagine my surprise when I actually pulled off an image that I was happy with.  (I never say that!)

I knew I wanted to dump alot of integration time into the Ha signal of this galaxy, so I let her rip on pretty much every clear night we had.   Seeing was already bad, so I decided to let her rip on 40 minute subs even, just for science.   Not much surprise but the signal gained didn't seem completely worth it over 20 minute.    Also, I learned (completely accidentally) that I can take 40 minute broadband exposures too!  Definitely wasn't ideal by any means, but the sharpness was just the same.   Star cores were of course blown, but rejection took care of most of that.  I stacked up with and without the 40 minute reds, and the difference was negligible....so I kept it.

One thing I tried my hardest to work on was going much easier with the denoise in this image.    I knew there was no IFN or dust to expose, so I had to focus on all the little faint details, the small galaxies, tiny stars.   At what point did too much denoise ruin the nice background?   Did the little stars still stand out?   For once, I feel like I did it right.   What do you folks think?

Lastly, the Ha jet was the absolute icing on the cake!    All the little fine details and structures in the outer rings of the galaxy made it pop when the rest of the galaxy was very soft (thank to winter seeing!).   Here is a screenshot of the Ha data.    Jaw dropping honestly.   Hope you guys enjoy, let me know what you think!






If you're interested, check out the full wide field of view!    It's pretty awesome!
https://www.astrobin.com/sqsnbp/C/