How long to image the Pinwheel Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 4 h 14 min (3,814 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Pinwheel Galaxy. A quick look takes 1 h 04 min; a showpiece 17 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 2 h 24 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 85% of the frame’s short side.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 33 min501 subs | 2 h 14 min2,003 subs | 8 h 54 min8,012 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 34 min515 subs | 2 h 17 min2,059 subs | 9 h 09 min8,234 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 36 min541 subs | 2 h 24 min2,164 subs | 9 h 37 min8,655 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 40 min605 subs | 2 h 41 min2,419 subs | 11 h9,674 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 47 min706 subs | 3 h 08 min2,823 subs | 13 h11,290 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 1 h 04 min954 subs | 4 h 14 min3,814 subs | 17 h15,253 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 1 h 35 min1,426 subs | 6 h 20 min5,702 subs | 25 h22,805 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 2 h 24 min2,159 subs | 9 h 36 min8,633 subs | 38 h34,531 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 4 h 08 min3,722 subs | 17 h14,885 subs | 66 h59,540 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 5 h 30 min of run time. The eQuinox 2’s battery (rated about 11 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.)
- 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.
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Everything that fits the eQuinox 2 →
How it frames
The Pinwheel Galaxy is 29′ × 27′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it fills 85% of the frame’s short side.
About the Pinwheel Galaxy
Big, face-on and faint. Its total magnitude is flattering; spread over half a degree the arms are dim and demand hours, especially from suburban skies.
M101, NGC 5457 · Galaxy in Ursa Major · magnitude 7.9 · 29′ × 27′ · best in Apr, May, Jun. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Galaxies are broadband targets: their light is mostly starlight spread across the spectrum, so a dual-band filter throws most of it away and makes things slower, not faster. Shoot without a filter (or with a plain UV/IR cut) and rely on total time and a dark sky. The core of a galaxy is usually many times brighter than its outer disc, so a short stack shows the nucleus long before the arms; the figures here are for the arms and disc, not the core.
Field rotation in Alt-Az mode crops the edges of the stack over a long session, so on a big galaxy re-centre now and then or use EQ mode where your scope supports it.
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 Pinwheel Galaxy from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 4 h 37 min from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 5 h 03 min from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 4 h 51 min from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 5 h 21 min from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 6 h 41 min from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 4 h 35 min from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 3 h 47 min from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 16 h from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 4 h 37 min from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 10 h from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 4 h 24 min from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 9 h 52 min from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 20 h from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 1 h 13 min from Bortle 6
- Pinwheel Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 1 h 40 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Pinwheel Galaxy · All targets for the eQuinox 2