How long to image the M14 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera Pro needs about 50 min (302 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the M14. A quick look takes 13 min; a showpiece 3 h 21 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 24 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 11% 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 | 5 min33 subs | 22 min132 subs | 1 h 28 min528 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 6 min35 subs | 23 min138 subs | 1 h 31 min549 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 6 min37 subs | 24 min147 subs | 1 h 38 min588 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 7 min43 subs | 28 min171 subs | 1 h 54 min684 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 9 min53 subs | 35 min209 subs | 2 h 19 min836 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 13 min76 subs | 50 min302 subs | 3 h 21 min1,208 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 20 min120 subs | 1 h 20 min480 subs | 5 h 20 min1,918 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 31 min189 subs | 2 h 06 min756 subs | 8 h 23 min3,021 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 56 min336 subs | 3 h 44 min1,343 subs | 15 h5,372 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 05 min of run time. The Vespera Pro’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 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.
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 Vespera Pro →
How it frames
The M14 is 11′ across. The Vespera Pro frames 1.62° × 1.62° at 1.65″ per pixel, so it fills 11% 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 | 24 min147 subs | 35 min209 subs | 1 h 20 min480 subs |
| 20 s | 21 min64 subs | 32 min95 subs | 1 h 17 min230 subs |
| 30 s | 20 min41 subs | 30 min61 subs | 1 h 16 min152 subs |
About the M14
A fainter, more distant globular in Ophiuchus. Takes longer than its neighbours to resolve.
NGC 6402 · Globular cluster in Ophiuchus · magnitude 7.6 · 11′ · 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 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 M14 from a Vespera Pro? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- M14 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 23 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 25 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 24 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 26 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 33 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 23 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the DwarfLab Draco: 19 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 1 h 16 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 23 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 22 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 48 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 20 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the Unistellar Odyssey: 1 h 30 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the Celestron Origin: 6 min from Bortle 6
- M14 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 8 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the M14 · All targets for the Vespera Pro