How long to image the Triangulum Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 2 h 28 min (2,219 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Triangulum Galaxy. A quick look takes 37 min; a showpiece 9 h 52 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 1 h 25 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it is 2.1× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 20 min295 subs | 1 h 18 min1,177 subs | 5 h 14 min4,707 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 20 min303 subs | 1 h 21 min1,209 subs | 5 h 22 min4,835 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 21 min318 subs | 1 h 25 min1,270 subs | 5 h 38 min5,077 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 24 min354 subs | 1 h 34 min1,416 subs | 6 h 18 min5,664 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 27 min413 subs | 1 h 50 min1,649 subs | 7 h 20 min6,593 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 37 min555 subs | 2 h 28 min2,219 subs | 9 h 52 min8,874 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 55 min827 subs | 3 h 40 min3,305 subs | 15 h13,220 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 1 h 23 min1,248 subs | 5 h 33 min4,992 subs | 22 h19,967 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 2 h 23 min2,148 subs | 9 h 33 min8,590 subs | 38 h34,358 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 3 h 12 min of run time. The eQuinox 2’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 power bank 20000mAh 5V 2AUnistellar asks for a 5 V 2 A output; PD is not needed.
- 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 eQuinox 2 →
How it frames
The Triangulum Galaxy is 73′ × 45′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it is 2.1× 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.
About the Triangulum Galaxy
Big, face-on and low in surface brightness. Nearly as bright as M31 overall but spread thin, so it needs far more time. Its H II regions pop with a dual-band filter.
M33, NGC 598 · Galaxy in Triangulum · magnitude 5.7 · 73′ × 45′ · 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 Unistellar eQuinox 2
A 114 mm Newtonian with five times the light grasp of a 50 mm refractor. Fixed 4 s subs put it in read-noise territory under dark skies, but the aperture carries it. The published field is 45.6′ × 34.2′, a crop of the sensor.
Fixed 4 s subs in Enhanced Vision; they cannot be changed. No built-in filter. Unistellar sells only a solar filter and says a third-party filter is at your own risk and voids the warranty.
The eQuinox 2 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 Triangulum Galaxy from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Triangulum Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 2 h 42 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 2 h 57 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 2 h 50 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 3 h 08 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 3 h 55 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 2 h 41 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 2 h 13 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 9 h 16 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 2 h 42 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 6 h 03 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 2 h 35 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 5 h 46 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 11 h from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 43 min from Bortle 6
- Triangulum Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 59 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Triangulum Galaxy · All targets for the eQuinox 2