How long to image the Spindle Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 20 min (305 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Spindle Galaxy. A quick look takes 5 min; a showpiece 1 h 21 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 13 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 14% 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 | 3 min46 subs | 12 min181 subs | 48 min721 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 3 min46 subs | 12 min184 subs | 49 min736 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 3 min48 subs | 13 min192 subs | 51 min765 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 3 min53 subs | 14 min209 subs | 56 min835 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 4 min60 subs | 16 min237 subs | 1 h 03 min946 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 5 min77 subs | 20 min305 subs | 1 h 21 min1,218 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 7 min109 subs | 29 min435 subs | 1 h 56 min1,737 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 11 min159 subs | 42 min636 subs | 2 h 49 min2,542 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 18 min267 subs | 1 h 11 min1,065 subs | 4 h 44 min4,259 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 26 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 Spindle Galaxy is 4.7′ × 1.9′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it fills 14% of the frame’s short side.
About the Spindle Galaxy
An edge-on lenticular with a thin dust lane. Small, but its surface brightness is decent.
M102, NGC 5866 · Galaxy in Draco · magnitude 9.9 · 4.7′ × 1.9′ · 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 Spindle 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
- Spindle Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 24 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 26 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 25 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 27 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 35 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 23 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 19 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 1 h 18 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 24 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 52 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 23 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 50 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 1 h 32 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 6 min from Bortle 6
- Spindle Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 9 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Spindle Galaxy · All targets for the eQuinox 2