How long to image the M107 with the Unistellar Odyssey
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar Odyssey needs about 4 h 05 min (3,680 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the M107. A quick look takes 1 h 01 min; a showpiece 16 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 2 h 45 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 39% 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 | 39 min591 subs | 2 h 38 min2,364 subs | 11 h9,454 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 40 min601 subs | 2 h 40 min2,404 subs | 11 h9,616 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 41 min621 subs | 2 h 45 min2,481 subs | 11 h9,921 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 44 min667 subs | 2 h 58 min2,666 subs | 12 h10,663 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 49 min740 subs | 3 h 17 min2,960 subs | 13 h11,837 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 1 h 01 min920 subs | 4 h 05 min3,680 subs | 16 h14,719 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 1 h 24 min1,264 subs | 5 h 37 min5,053 subs | 22 h20,211 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 2 h1,797 subs | 7 h 59 min7,185 subs | 32 h28,737 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 3 h 16 min2,933 subs | 13 h11,731 subs | 52 h46,921 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 5 h 19 min of run time. The Odyssey’s battery is rated at about 5 h, so the session needs an external power bank. (Bortle 6, solid image; we allow 30% over the integration time.)
- USB power bank 20000mAh 5V 2.4AUnistellar says plain 5 V 2.4 A and warns against fast or adaptive chargers.
- 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 Odyssey →
How it frames
The M107 is 13′ across. The Odyssey frames 0.75° × 0.56° at 0.93″ per pixel, so it fills 39% of the frame’s short side.
About the M107
A loose, dust-dimmed globular in Ophiuchus. Modest but straightforward.
NGC 6171 · Globular cluster in Ophiuchus · magnitude 7.9 · 13′ · best in May, Jun, Jul. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Globular clusters are point sources packed tight, so they come quickly: the core resolves into stars within a handful of minutes on any smart scope. More time deepens the halo and pulls in the faint outer members. Use short subs so the core does not saturate into a white blob, and no filter.
About the Unistellar Odyssey
Unistellar’s compact 85 mm with autofocus and tiny pixels. Sharp, but the fine sampling costs time on faint extended targets. The Odyssey Pro is the same telescope with an eyepiece added, so these figures apply to both.
Fixed 4 s subs in Enhanced Vision; they cannot be changed. No filter option; Unistellar says third-party filters cannot be fitted to the Odyssey.
The Odyssey 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 M107 from a Odyssey? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- M107 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 59 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 1 h 05 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 1 h 02 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 1 h 09 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 1 h 26 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 59 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the DwarfLab Draco: 49 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 3 h 22 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 59 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 2 h 12 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 57 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 2 h 06 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 53 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the Celestron Origin: 16 min from Bortle 6
- M107 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 22 min from Bortle 6