How long to image the Soul Nebula with the Unistellar Odyssey
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar Odyssey needs about 24 h (21,279 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Soul Nebula. A quick look takes 5 h 55 min; a showpiece 95 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 16 h. 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 | 3 h 43 min3,340 subs | 15 h13,360 subs | 59 h53,438 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 3 h 47 min3,401 subs | 15 h13,603 subs | 60 h54,411 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 3 h 54 min3,516 subs | 16 h14,063 subs | 63 h56,251 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 4 h 13 min3,795 subs | 17 h15,178 subs | 67 h60,710 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 4 h 42 min4,236 subs | 19 h16,944 subs | 75 h67,776 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 5 h 55 min5,320 subs | 24 h21,279 subs | 95 h85,113 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 8 h 12 min7,385 subs | 33 h29,538 subs | 130+ h118,149 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 12 h10,591 subs | 47 h42,361 subs | 190+ h169,442 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 19 h17,428 subs | 77 h69,709 subs | 310+ h278,835 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 31 h of run time. That is more than one night: over 5 nights, about 6 h 09 min each. The Odyssey’s battery is rated at about 5 h, less near freezing, so each night needs an external power bank. (Bortle 6, solid image; we allow 30% over the integration time, and 30% off the battery for a November night.)
- USB power bank 20000mAh 5V 2.4AUnistellar says plain 5 V 2.4 A and warns against fast or adaptive chargers.
- 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 Odyssey →
How it frames
The Soul Nebula is 60′ × 30′ across. The Odyssey frames 0.75° × 0.56° at 0.93″ 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 Odyssey has no dual-band option: No filter option; Unistellar says third-party filters cannot be fitted to the Odyssey. 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 Odyssey
Unistellar’s compact 85 mm with autofocus and tiny pixels. Sharp, but the fine sampling costs time on faint extended targets. The Odyssey Pro is the same telescope with an eyepiece added, so these figures apply to both.
Fixed 4 s subs in Enhanced Vision; they cannot be changed. No filter option; Unistellar says third-party filters cannot be fitted to the Odyssey.
The Odyssey 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 Odyssey? 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 eQuinox 2: 5 h 05 min 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 Odyssey