How long to image the Witch Head Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera 3
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera 3 needs about 39 h (13,966 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Witch Head Nebula. A quick look takes 9 h 42 min; a showpiece 160+ h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 13 h. At Bortle 6 the limit is skyglow, so a darker site or a filter helps more than longer subs. In this scope's field it is 2.0× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 2 h 38 min948 subs | 11 h3,790 subs | 42 h15,158 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 2 h 51 min1,026 subs | 11 h4,102 subs | 46 h16,408 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 3 h 16 min1,174 subs | 13 h4,694 subs | 52 h18,773 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 4 h 15 min1,532 subs | 17 h6,126 subs | 68 h24,502 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 5 h 50 min2,099 subs | 23 h8,396 subs | 93 h33,583 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 9 h 42 min3,492 subs | 39 h13,966 subs | 160+ h55,863 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 17 h6,145 subs | 68 h24,580 subs | 270+ h98,317 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 29 h10,265 subs | 110+ h41,059 subs | 460+ h164,233 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 53 h19,051 subs | 210+ h76,203 subs | 850+ h304,811 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 50 h of run time. That is more than one night: over 8 nights, about 6 h 18 min each. The Vespera 3’s battery (rated about 11 h) should cover each night; a power bank still keeps the phone running the app alive. (Bortle 6, solid image; we allow 30% over the integration time, and 30% off the battery for a December night.)
- USB-C PD power bank 20000mAh 30WVaonis says an external bank extends sessions; 30 W PD as for the II and Pro.
- 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 Vespera 3 →
How it frames
The Witch Head Nebula is 180′ × 60′ across. The Vespera 3 frames 2.60° × 1.46° at 2.44″ per pixel, so it is 2.0× 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.
Longer subs
10 s subs by default; Expert Mode manual targets allow 1 to 30 s. Alt-azimuth only; CovalENS mosaic widens the field to 4.3° × 2.4°. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 13 h4,694 subs | 23 h8,396 subs | 68 h24,580 subs |
| 20 s | 11 h1,931 subs | 21 h3,782 subs | 66 h11,874 subs |
| 30 s | 9 h 57 min1,195 subs | 20 h2,429 subs | 65 h7,823 subs |
About the Witch Head Nebula
A very faint blue reflection nebula lit by Rigel. A dark-sky, all-night, broadband project; it is one of the hardest objects on this list.
IC 2118 · Reflection nebula in Eridanus · magnitude 13.0 · 180′ × 60′ · best in Nov, Dec, Jan. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Reflection nebulae are starlight scattered by dust, so they are broadband and blue. A dual-band filter removes almost all of it; do not use one. These are among the faintest structures a smart scope can attempt and the figures run long. A dark sky matters more here than for any other type, and the Moon must be down.
About the Vaonis Vespera 3
The 2026 Vespera: same 50 mm quadruplet class as the II on an 8 MP IMX585, with a 24 MP mosaic mode and 11 hours of battery. Per pixel it behaves like a Seestar S50 Pro without the built-in dual-band filter.
10 s subs by default; Expert Mode manual targets allow 1 to 30 s. Alt-azimuth only; CovalENS mosaic widens the field to 4.3° × 2.4°. Optional clip-on Vaonis filters: dual-band, light-pollution (CLS) and solar. The new optical baffle is not a substitute for a CLS filter.
Longer subs matter most under dark skies, where read noise rather than skyglow sets the floor. From a city the difference between 10 s and 30 s subs is small; from a rural site it can halve the total time, especially with a dual-band filter in place.
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 Witch Head Nebula from a Vespera 3? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Witch Head Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50: 41 h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 44 h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30: 43 h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 47 h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 59 h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 40 h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the DwarfLab Draco: 33 h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 140+ h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera II: 41 h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 91 h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 87 h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 38 h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the Unistellar Odyssey: 180+ h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the Celestron Origin: 11 h from Bortle 6
- Witch Head Nebula with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 15 h from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Witch Head Nebula · All targets for the Vespera 3