How long to image the Andromeda Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the DwarfLab Draco needs about 1 h 12 min (144 subs of 30 s) for a solid image of the Andromeda Galaxy. A quick look takes 18 min; a showpiece 4 h 47 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 27 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 2.4× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 6 min12 subs | 23 min46 subs | 1 h 31 min183 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 6 min13 subs | 24 min49 subs | 1 h 37 min195 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 7 min14 subs | 27 min55 subs | 1 h 49 min218 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 9 min18 subs | 34 min69 subs | 2 h 16 min273 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 11 min23 subs | 45 min90 subs | 3 h360 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 18 min36 subs | 1 h 12 min144 subs | 4 h 47 min575 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 31 min62 subs | 2 h 03 min246 subs | 8 h 12 min984 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 51 min102 subs | 3 h 22 min405 subs | 13 h1,619 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 1 h 33 min186 subs | 6 h 11 min743 subs | 25 h2,972 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 33 min of run time. The Draco’s battery (rated about 5 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 20000mAhRated 5 h on its 10,000 mAh battery. DwarfLab has not published the charging input, so check PD support before relying on it mid-session.
- 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 Draco →
How it frames
The Andromeda Galaxy is 178′ × 63′ across. The Draco frames 1.66° × 1.24° at 1.46″ per pixel, so it is 2.4× 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
Auto Mode picks the exposure; Pro Mode allows up to 300 s, held by built-in guiding and field derotation. The 30 s default here is our assumption. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 s | 27 min55 subs | 45 min90 subs | 2 h 03 min246 subs |
| 60 s | 30 min30 subs | 41 min42 subs | 1 h 59 min120 subs |
| 120 s | 1 h30 subs | 1 h30 subs | 1 h 57 min59 subs |
| 300 s | 2 h 30 min30 subs | 2 h 30 min30 subs | 2 h 30 min30 subs |
Leave the dual-band filter out for the Andromeda Galaxy. It is a galaxy, and it shines right across the spectrum. A dual-band filter keeps two emission lines and throws the rest away, so most of the light you came for is being stopped along with the sky. From a Bortle 6 sky it would be roughly 11 times slower.
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 DwarfLab Draco
DwarfLab’s big scope: 90 mm of folded f/3.8 optics, the most aperture of any Seestar or DWARF, a narrow 13 nm dual-band filter and 300 s subs with built-in guiding. A small-target scope; big nebulae need its mosaic mode.
Auto Mode picks the exposure; Pro Mode allows up to 300 s, held by built-in guiding and field derotation. The 30 s default here is our assumption. Built-in Hα + OIII dual-narrowband filter, 13 nm per line; the SHO Edition adds an SII option.
Longer subs matter most under dark skies, where read noise rather than skyglow sets the floor. From a city the difference between 30 s and 300 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 Draco? 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 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: 23 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 Draco