How long to image the Sombrero Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the DwarfLab DWARF mini needs about 47 min (188 subs of 15 s) for a solid image of the Sombrero Galaxy. A quick look takes 12 min; a showpiece 3 h 07 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 20 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.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 4 min18 subs | 17 min70 subs | 1 h 09 min278 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 5 min19 subs | 18 min74 subs | 1 h 13 min293 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 5 min20 subs | 20 min80 subs | 1 h 20 min320 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 6 min25 subs | 24 min97 subs | 1 h 37 min387 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 8 min31 subs | 31 min123 subs | 2 h 03 min492 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 12 min47 subs | 47 min188 subs | 3 h 07 min749 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 19 min78 subs | 1 h 18 min311 subs | 5 h 10 min1,241 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 31 min126 subs | 2 h 05 min501 subs | 8 h 21 min2,003 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 57 min227 subs | 3 h 47 min908 subs | 15 h3,630 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 01 min of run time. The DWARF mini’s battery (rated about 3 h 30 min) 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 PD power bank 10000mAh 20W7,000 mAh inside, about four hours; a PD bank extends the night.
- red LED head torchRed light keeps your night vision; white light costs you twenty minutes of dark adaptation every time.
Affiliate links: the retailer pays us a small commission and you pay the same price. These are search links to the named product, not endorsements of a particular listing; check the listing matches your model.
Everything that fits the DWARF mini →
How it frames
The Sombrero Galaxy is 9′ × 4′ across. The DWARF mini frames 2.13° × 1.20° at 3.99″ per pixel, so it fills 13% of the frame’s short side.
Longer subs
Auto mode caps subs at 15 s; 30 s and longer need EQ mode, and 90 s is the ceiling. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 s | 20 min80 subs | 31 min123 subs | 1 h 18 min311 subs |
| 30 s | 18 min36 subs | 28 min57 subs | 1 h 15 min151 subs |
| 60 s | 30 min30 subs | 30 min30 subs | 1 h 14 min74 subs |
| 90 s | 45 min30 subs | 45 min30 subs | 1 h 13 min49 subs |
Leave the dual-band filter out for the Sombrero Galaxy. It is a galaxy, and it shines right across the spectrum. A dual-band filter keeps two emission lines and throws the rest away, so most of the light you came for is being stopped along with the sky. From a Bortle 6 sky it would be roughly 11 times slower.
About the Sombrero Galaxy
The bright bulge and knife-edge dust lane are obvious within an hour. Low from northern Europe, so catch it near the meridian.
M104, NGC 4594 · Galaxy in Virgo · magnitude 8.0 · 9′ × 4′ · best in Mar, Apr, May. 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 DwarfLab DWARF mini
DwarfLab’s answer to the Seestar S30: same sensor and focal length, big pixels, dual-band filter built in, and 90 s subs in EQ mode. Sensitivity over megapixels.
Auto mode caps subs at 15 s; 30 s and longer need EQ mode, and 90 s is the ceiling. Built-in Astro (430 to 690 nm), dark-frame and dual-band Hα / OIII filters; no plain VIS filter on the tele camera.
Longer subs matter most under dark skies, where read noise rather than skyglow sets the floor. From a city the difference between 15 s and 90 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 Sombrero Galaxy from a DWARF mini? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Sombrero Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 47 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 51 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 49 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 54 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 1 h 09 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 39 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 2 h 39 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 47 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 1 h 45 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 45 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 1 h 40 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 42 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 3 h 11 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 12 min from Bortle 6
- Sombrero Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 17 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Sombrero Galaxy · All targets for the DWARF mini