How long to image the M19 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera Pro needs about 47 min (283 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the M19. A quick look takes 12 min; a showpiece 3 h 09 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 22 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 17% 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 min30 subs | 20 min120 subs | 1 h 20 min479 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 5 min32 subs | 21 min125 subs | 1 h 23 min500 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 6 min34 subs | 22 min135 subs | 1 h 29 min537 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 7 min40 subs | 26 min158 subs | 1 h 45 min629 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 8 min49 subs | 32 min194 subs | 2 h 09 min775 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 12 min71 subs | 47 min283 subs | 3 h 09 min1,132 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 19 min114 subs | 1 h 15 min453 subs | 5 h 02 min1,812 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 30 min180 subs | 2 h718 subs | 7 h 58 min2,869 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 53 min321 subs | 3 h 33 min1,281 subs | 14 h5,122 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 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 M19 is 17′ across. The Vespera Pro frames 1.62° × 1.62° at 1.65″ per pixel, so it fills 17% 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 | 22 min135 subs | 32 min194 subs | 1 h 15 min453 subs |
| 20 s | 19 min58 subs | 29 min88 subs | 1 h 12 min218 subs |
| 30 s | 18 min37 subs | 28 min57 subs | 1 h 11 min143 subs |
About the M19
The most oblate of the globulars, visibly elongated. Low in the south from mid-northern latitudes.
NGC 6273 · Globular cluster in Ophiuchus · magnitude 6.8 · 17′ · 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 M19 from a Vespera Pro? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- M19 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 21 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 23 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 22 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 25 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 31 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 21 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the DwarfLab Draco: 17 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 1 h 11 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 21 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 20 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 45 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 19 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the Unistellar Odyssey: 1 h 25 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the Celestron Origin: 6 min from Bortle 6
- M19 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 8 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the M19 · All targets for the Vespera Pro