How long to image the Andromeda Galaxy with the Celestron Origin
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Celestron Origin needs about 23 min (139 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Andromeda Galaxy. A quick look takes 6 min; a showpiece 1 h 33 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 8 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 is 3.5× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 2 min10 subs | 6 min39 subs | 26 min156 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 2 min11 subs | 7 min42 subs | 28 min168 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 2 min12 subs | 8 min48 subs | 32 min191 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 3 min16 subs | 10 min62 subs | 41 min248 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 4 min22 subs | 14 min85 subs | 56 min337 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 6 min35 subs | 23 min139 subs | 1 h 33 min556 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 10 min61 subs | 41 min244 subs | 2 h 42 min974 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 17 min102 subs | 1 h 08 min406 subs | 4 h 30 min1,622 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 31 min188 subs | 2 h 05 min751 subs | 8 h 21 min3,004 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 30 min of run time. The Origin’s battery (rated about 6 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.)
- portable power station 300W AC outletRuns the supplied 12 V adapter in the field; the dew shield and heater are already built in.
- 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 Origin →
How it frames
The Andromeda Galaxy is 178′ × 63′ across. The Origin frames 1.27° × 0.85° at 1.48″ per pixel, so it is 3.5× wider than the frame. A mosaic, or choosing the part you want and letting the rest go, is how it gets shot on this scope.
Longer subs
10 s auto subs (15 s with the Nebula Filter); manual 1 to 30 s on the alt-az mount, longer only with the EQ wedge, and 60 s and up needs the StarSense Autoguider too. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 8 min48 subs | 14 min85 subs | 41 min244 subs |
| 15 s | 8 min30 subs | 13 min54 subs | 40 min161 subs |
| 30 s | 15 min30 subs | 15 min30 subs | 39 min79 subs |
About the Andromeda Galaxy
The nearest big spiral and the most imaged galaxy in the sky. The core arrives in minutes, the dust lanes in an hour, the faint outer disc needs a whole night. Too big for most smart-scope fields without mosaic.
M31, NGC 224 · Galaxy in Andromeda · magnitude 3.4 · 178′ × 63′ · best in Sep, Oct, Nov. 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 Celestron Origin
The first-generation Origin: a 6-inch f/2.2 RASA in a smart package and the fastest system here by a wide margin. Superseded by the Mark II in late 2025 and no longer sold new; Celestron offers a camera upgrade to the Mark II sensor.
10 s auto subs (15 s with the Nebula Filter); manual 1 to 30 s on the alt-az mount, longer only with the EQ wedge, and 60 s and up needs the StarSense Autoguider too. Filter drawer takes 1.25-inch or 2-inch filters, including dual-band; Celestron sells an optional Nebula Filter.
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 Andromeda Galaxy from a Origin? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Andromeda Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 1 h 27 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 1 h 36 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 1 h 32 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 1 h 41 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 2 h 07 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 1 h 27 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 1 h 12 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 4 h 59 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 1 h 27 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 3 h 16 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 1 h 24 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 3 h 07 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 1 h 19 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 6 h 07 min from Bortle 6
- Andromeda Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 32 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Andromeda Galaxy · All targets for the Origin