How long to image the Witch Head Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera Pro needs about 91 h (32,904 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Witch Head Nebula. A quick look takes 23 h; a showpiece 370+ h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 35 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 1.9× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 7 h 23 min2,657 subs | 30 h10,626 subs | 120+ h42,504 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 7 h 51 min2,828 subs | 31 h11,310 subs | 130+ h45,240 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 8 h 45 min3,152 subs | 35 h12,605 subs | 140+ h50,418 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 11 h3,936 subs | 44 h15,741 subs | 170+ h62,961 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 14 h5,178 subs | 58 h20,711 subs | 230+ h82,841 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 23 h8,226 subs | 91 h32,904 subs | 370+ h131,616 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 39 h14,035 subs | 160+ h56,139 subs | 620+ h224,556 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 64 h23,054 subs | 260+ h92,215 subs | 1020+ h368,857 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 120+ h42,289 subs | 470+ h169,153 subs | 1880+ h676,609 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 120+ h of run time. That is more than one night: over 17 nights, about 6 h 59 min each. The Vespera Pro’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 December night.)
- USB-C PD power bank 20000mAh 30WExtends the 11 h battery; 30 W PD per Vaonis.
- 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 Pro →
How it frames
The Witch Head Nebula is 180′ × 60′ across. The Vespera Pro frames 1.62° × 1.62° at 1.65″ per pixel, so it is 1.9× 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, no EQ mode. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 35 h12,605 subs | 58 h20,711 subs | 160+ h56,139 subs |
| 20 s | 28 h5,025 subs | 50 h9,078 subs | 150+ h26,792 subs |
| 30 s | 26 h3,066 subs | 48 h5,768 subs | 150+ h17,578 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 Pro
The square-sensor Vespera with 2 µm pixels. Higher resolution than the II, and correspondingly slower per pixel: expect around double the time for the same per-pixel SNR. Run-out in 2026 and replaced by the Vespera Pro 2.
10 s subs by default; Expert Mode manual targets allow 1 to 30 s. Alt-azimuth only, no EQ mode. Optional clip-on Vaonis filters: dual-band, light-pollution (CLS) and solar.
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 Pro? 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 3: 39 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 Pro