How long should I image the Crab Nebula with the Origin Mark II from a Bortle 6 sky?

About 14 min of total integration for a solid image, or 56 min for a showpiece. A quick look takes 4 min.

How many subs is that on the Origin Mark II?

At the default 10 s sub length, 85 subs for a solid image from Bortle 6 and 34 from Bortle 3.

Does a dual-band filter help on the Crab Nebula?

Yes. It is an emission-line object; from Bortle 6 the filter cuts the solid-image time from 14 min to 8 min.

How long to image the Crab Nebula with the Celestron Origin Mark II

From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Celestron Origin Mark II needs about 14 min (85 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Crab Nebula. A quick look takes 4 min; a showpiece 56 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 6 min. 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 fills 13% of the frame’s short side.

Crab Nebula with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 10 s subs.
Sky	Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy	SolidClean enough to share	ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy
Bortle 1Excellent dark site	2 min10 subs	5 min30 subs	19 min114 subs
Bortle 2Typical dark site	2 min10 subs	5 min31 subs	20 min121 subs
Bortle 3Rural	2 min10 subs	6 min34 subs	22 min134 subs
Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition	2 min11 subs	7 min42 subs	28 min166 subs
Bortle 5Suburban	2 min14 subs	9 min54 subs	36 min216 subs
Bortle 6Bright suburban	4 min22 subs	14 min85 subs	56 min339 subs
Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition	6 min36 subs	24 min143 subs	1 h 35 min572 subs
Bortle 8City	10 min59 subs	39 min234 subs	2 h 36 min935 subs
Bortle 9Inner city	18 min107 subs	1 h 11 min428 subs	4 h 45 min1,710 subs

Adjust in the calculator

Power and kit for this session

Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 18 min of run time. The Origin Mark II’s battery (rated about 6 h) should cover it; 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.)

portable power station 300W AC outletRuns the supplied 12 V adapter off-grid; dew shield and heater are built in.
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red LED head torchRed light keeps your night vision; white light costs you twenty minutes of dark adaptation every time.
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How it frames

The Crab Nebula is 6′ × 4′ across. The Origin Mark II frames 1.32° × 0.75° at 1.23″ per pixel, so it fills 13% of the frame’s short side.

Longer subs

10 s auto subs (15 s with the Nebula Filter); manual 1 to 30 s on the alt-az mount, longer only with the EQ wedge, and 60 s and up needs the StarSense Autoguider too. Celestron warns the f/2.2 optics saturate quickly without the filter. Time for a solid image by sub length:

Sub length	Bortle 3	Bortle 5	Bortle 7
10 s	6 min34 subs	9 min54 subs	24 min143 subs
15 s	8 min30 subs	9 min36 subs	24 min95 subs
30 s	15 min30 subs	15 min30 subs	24 min48 subs

With and without the dual-band filter

Solid quality, default sub length.
Filter	Bortle 3	Bortle 5	Bortle 7
No filter	6 min34 subs	9 min54 subs	24 min143 subs
dual-band (Nebula Filter), drawer	6 min34 subs	7 min41 subs	11 min68 subs

The Origin Mark II has no built-in dual-band filter. Filter drawer takes 1.25-inch or 2-inch filters, including dual-band; Celestron sells an optional Nebula Filter. On an emission target like this it is the single biggest upgrade you can make.

About the Crab Nebula

The remains of the supernova of 1054, a tangle of filaments around a pulsar. Small but bright enough for a good result in an evening.

M1, NGC 1952 · Supernova remnant in Taurus · magnitude 8.4 · 6′ × 4′ · best in Nov, Dec, Jan. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.

Supernova remnants are emission-line objects, strong in both hydrogen-alpha and OIII, and their filaments are thin, so pixel scale matters as much as aperture. A dual-band filter is essential from any lit sky and still helps under a dark one. These are long-integration targets; plan on several sessions and stack across nights.

About the Celestron Origin Mark II

The Origin Mark II (late 2025): the same 6-inch f/2.2 RASA with an 8 MP IMX678 in place of the original 6 MP IMX178. Smaller pixels for finer detail, a quieter sensor, and still the fastest system here by a wide margin.

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.

Where to buy the Origin Mark IICelestron store Direct Amazon UK Amazon USThe Celestron store link is a plain link; the others are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you.

Imaged the Crab Nebula with your Origin Mark II? Did the solid figure match?Anonymous, one tap. It is how the model gets calibrated.

Have an image of the Crab Nebula from a Origin Mark II? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.

Same target, other telescopes

All telescopes for the Crab Nebula · All targets for the Origin Mark II