Astronomical images, courtesy of Bob Goodrich, Mike Bolte, and the ESI team.

  1. Stephan's Quintet, a small compact group of galaxies.
  2. The Ring Nebula, M57, a planetary nebula in Lyra.
  3. NGC 7662, a planetary nebula in Andromeda.
  4. V645 Cyg, The Duck Nebula, a young star in Cygnus. The outline of the ``duck'' is better seen in longer exposures, and in recent years the duck has lost its beak! Images taken in 1985 show a distinct narrow feature which has since disappeared. The feature was likely a beam of light escaping through a small opening in a shroud of dust clouds. Movement of the clouds since 1985 has closed the hole, and turned off the illumination in this part of the nebula.
  5. NGC 891, an edge-on spiral galaxy in Andromeda. This image was taken with the new, full-field Ellis R filter. Scattered moonlight affects the upper half of the image.

The following commissioning photos are thanks to ESI P.I. Joe Miller.

  1. Jim Bell guides ESI into the telescope.
  2. ESI between LRIS (left) and the tertiary mirror (right) on the Nasmyth deck.
  3. The ESI crew. Left to right, Jim Burrous, Jerry Nelson, Dave Cowley, and Andy Sheinis.
  4. The Keck domes seen from Subaru.
  5. ESI goes into the telescope.
  6. ESI goes a little farther into the telescope.
  7. The cable wrap follows the telescope mirror support structure.
  8. The ESI team takes a well-deserved break!