How long to image the Soul Nebula with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 5 h 05 min (4,571 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Soul Nebula. A quick look takes 1 h 16 min; a showpiece 20 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 2 h 52 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it is 1.8× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 40 min599 subs | 2 h 40 min2,395 subs | 11 h9,577 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 41 min616 subs | 2 h 44 min2,461 subs | 11 h9,844 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 43 min647 subs | 2 h 52 min2,588 subs | 11 h10,350 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 48 min724 subs | 3 h 13 min2,894 subs | 13 h11,575 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 56 min845 subs | 3 h 45 min3,380 subs | 15 h13,517 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 1 h 16 min1,143 subs | 5 h 05 min4,571 subs | 20 h18,283 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 1 h 54 min1,711 subs | 7 h 36 min6,841 subs | 30 h27,362 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 2 h 53 min2,592 subs | 12 h10,365 subs | 46 h41,460 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 4 h 58 min4,471 subs | 20 h17,882 subs | 79 h71,527 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 6 h 36 min of run time. The eQuinox 2’s battery is rated at about 11 h, less near freezing, which is cutting it fine; take a power bank. (Bortle 6, solid image; we allow 30% over the integration time, and 30% off the battery for a November night.)
- USB-C power bank 20000mAh 5V 2AUnistellar asks for a 5 V 2 A output; PD is not needed.
- red LED head torchRed light keeps your night vision; white light costs you twenty minutes of dark adaptation every time.
- hand warmers long lastingAir-activated packs give hours of heat for the person; winter nights are long and you spend most of them standing still.
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Everything that fits the eQuinox 2 →
How it frames
The Soul Nebula is 60′ × 30′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it is 1.8× wider than the frame. A mosaic, or choosing the part you want and letting the rest go, is how it gets shot on this scope.
Filters
The Soul Nebula is an emission target, where a dual-band filter would normally cut the time several-fold from a lit sky, but the eQuinox 2 has no dual-band option: No built-in filter. Unistellar sells only a solar filter and says a third-party filter is at your own risk and voids the warranty. The figures above are for the No filter position, and a darker sky is the lever that remains.
About the Soul Nebula
The Heart's companion, a knobbly emission cloud full of pillars. Faint overall; long dual-band integrations reward you.
IC 1848, Sh2-199 · Emission nebula in Cassiopeia · magnitude 6.5 · 60′ × 30′ · best in Oct, Nov, Dec. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Emission nebulae glow in a few narrow lines, mostly hydrogen-alpha (deep red) and doubly ionised oxygen (teal). A dual-band filter passes those lines and blocks most skyglow, which is why it cuts the time needed from a suburban sky so dramatically. Use it. From a genuinely dark site the gain is smaller because there is less skyglow to block, and read noise becomes the limit, which is where longer subs (EQ mode, or Expert Mode on a Vespera) earn their keep.
Stars lose colour through a dual-band filter; a short broadband stack blended in fixes that if you care.
About the Unistellar eQuinox 2
A 114 mm Newtonian with five times the light grasp of a 50 mm refractor. Fixed 4 s subs put it in read-noise territory under dark skies, but the aperture carries it. The published field is 45.6′ × 34.2′, a crop of the sensor.
Fixed 4 s subs in Enhanced Vision; they cannot be changed. No built-in filter. Unistellar sells only a solar filter and says a third-party filter is at your own risk and voids the warranty.
The eQuinox 2 uses fixed 4 s subs, so the only levers you have are the sky you shoot from, the filter, and total time.
Stack across nights. Every smart scope app can continue a stack or you can combine the saved frames on a computer; the figures here are totals, not single-session limits.
Have an image of the Soul Nebula from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Soul Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50: 3 h 21 min from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 3 h 46 min from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30: 3 h 57 min from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 4 h 04 min from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 4 h 06 min from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 3 h 18 min from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the DwarfLab Draco: 2 h 39 min from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 19 h from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera II: 5 h 31 min from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 12 h from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 5 h 16 min from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 12 h from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the Unistellar Odyssey: 24 h from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the Celestron Origin: 1 h 27 min from Bortle 6
- Soul Nebula with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 2 h from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Soul Nebula · All targets for the eQuinox 2