How long to image the Sombrero Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera II needs about 47 min (283 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Sombrero Galaxy. A quick look takes 12 min; a showpiece 3 h 08 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 10% 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 min27 subs | 18 min106 subs | 1 h 10 min422 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 5 min28 subs | 18 min111 subs | 1 h 14 min444 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 5 min31 subs | 20 min122 subs | 1 h 21 min485 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 6 min37 subs | 24 min146 subs | 1 h 37 min584 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 8 min47 subs | 31 min186 subs | 2 h 04 min742 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 12 min71 subs | 47 min283 subs | 3 h 08 min1,129 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 19 min117 subs | 1 h 18 min467 subs | 5 h 11 min1,865 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 31 min189 subs | 2 h 05 min753 subs | 8 h 21 min3,009 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 57 min341 subs | 3 h 47 min1,363 subs | 15 h5,449 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 Vespera II’s battery (rated about 4 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 PD power bank 20000mAh 30WOnly four hours inside; Vaonis specifies a 30 W PD source. C-to-C cable not included.
- Vaonis Vespera hygrometer sensorTriggers the built-in demister automatically; the correct dew accessory for the II.
- 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 Vespera II →
How it frames
The Sombrero Galaxy is 9′ × 4′ across. The Vespera II frames 2.55° × 1.44° at 2.39″ per pixel, so it fills 10% 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 | 20 min122 subs | 31 min186 subs | 1 h 18 min467 subs |
| 20 s | 18 min54 subs | 28 min86 subs | 1 h 15 min226 subs |
| 30 s | 17 min34 subs | 28 min56 subs | 1 h 14 min149 subs |
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 Vaonis Vespera II
A 50 mm quadruplet on an 8 MP sensor with Vaonis’s mosaic mode for wide fields. Same optics class as the Seestar S50, four times the pixels.
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; the app detects which is fitted.
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 Sombrero Galaxy from a Vespera II? 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 DWARF mini: 47 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 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 Vespera II