How long to image the Pinwheel Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera Pro needs about 10 h (3,727 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Pinwheel Galaxy. A quick look takes 2 h 35 min; a showpiece 41 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 4 h 10 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 30% 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 | 53 min321 subs | 3 h 34 min1,284 subs | 14 h5,136 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 57 min340 subs | 3 h 46 min1,359 subs | 15 h5,436 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 1 h 03 min376 subs | 4 h 10 min1,501 subs | 17 h6,004 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 1 h 17 min462 subs | 5 h 07 min1,845 subs | 20 h7,379 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 1 h 40 min598 subs | 6 h 38 min2,390 subs | 27 h9,559 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 2 h 35 min932 subs | 10 h3,727 subs | 41 h14,907 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 4 h 21 min1,569 subs | 17 h6,275 subs | 70 h25,097 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 7 h 06 min2,558 subs | 28 h10,230 subs | 110+ h40,920 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 13 h4,667 subs | 52 h18,666 subs | 210+ h74,664 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 13 h of run time. That is more than one night: over 2 nights, about 6 h 44 min each. The Vespera Pro’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.)
- 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.
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How it frames
The Pinwheel Galaxy is 29′ × 27′ across. The Vespera Pro frames 1.62° × 1.62° at 1.65″ per pixel, so it fills 30% of the frame’s short side.
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 | 4 h 10 min1,501 subs | 6 h 38 min2,390 subs | 17 h6,275 subs |
| 20 s | 3 h 23 min611 subs | 5 h 52 min1,055 subs | 17 h2,998 subs |
| 30 s | 3 h 08 min376 subs | 5 h 36 min673 subs | 16 h1,967 subs |
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 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 Pinwheel Galaxy from a Vespera Pro? 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 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 eQuinox 2: 4 h 14 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 Vespera Pro