How long to image the M36 with the Unistellar Odyssey
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar Odyssey needs about 11 min (170 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the M36. A quick look takes 3 min; a showpiece 45 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 8 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 36% 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 | 2 min31 subs | 8 min123 subs | 33 min489 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 2 min31 subs | 8 min124 subs | 33 min495 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 2 min32 subs | 8 min127 subs | 34 min506 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 2 min34 subs | 9 min134 subs | 35 min533 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 2 min36 subs | 10 min144 subs | 38 min575 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 3 min43 subs | 11 min170 subs | 45 min679 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 4 min55 subs | 15 min219 subs | 58 min876 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 5 min74 subs | 20 min296 subs | 1 h 19 min1,183 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 8 min115 subs | 31 min460 subs | 2 h 02 min1,838 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 15 min of run time. The Odyssey’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, and 30% off the battery for a December night.)
- USB power bank 20000mAh 5V 2.4AUnistellar says plain 5 V 2.4 A and warns against fast or adaptive chargers.
- red LED head torchRed light keeps your night vision; white light costs you twenty minutes of dark adaptation every time.
- hand warmers long lastingAir-activated packs give hours of heat for the person; winter nights are long and you spend most of them standing still.
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Everything that fits the Odyssey →
How it frames
The M36 is 12′ across. The Odyssey frames 0.75° × 0.56° at 0.93″ per pixel, so it fills 36% of the frame’s short side.
About the M36
The smallest and brightest of the three Auriga Messier clusters. Compact, blue stars.
NGC 1960 · Open cluster in Auriga · magnitude 6.3 · 12′ · best in Nov, Dec, Jan. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Open clusters are the easiest targets in the sky. The stars are bright, so the aim is colour and tight stars rather than depth: short subs, no filter, and stop before the bright members saturate. The nominal time here gets you clean star colour; more integration only adds background stars.
About the Unistellar Odyssey
Unistellar’s compact 85 mm with autofocus and tiny pixels. Sharp, but the fine sampling costs time on faint extended targets. The Odyssey Pro is the same telescope with an eyepiece added, so these figures apply to both.
Fixed 4 s subs in Enhanced Vision; they cannot be changed. No filter option; Unistellar says third-party filters cannot be fitted to the Odyssey.
The Odyssey 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 M36 from a Odyssey? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- M36 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 5 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 5 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 5 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 5 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 8 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 8 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the DwarfLab Draco: 15 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 10 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 5 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 7 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 5 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 7 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 3 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the Celestron Origin: 5 min from Bortle 6
- M36 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 5 min from Bortle 6