How long to image the Orion Nebula with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 15 min (224 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Orion Nebula. A quick look takes 4 min; a showpiece 1 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 9 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it is 2.5× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 2 min33 subs | 9 min129 subs | 34 min514 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 2 min33 subs | 9 min132 subs | 35 min526 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 2 min35 subs | 9 min137 subs | 36 min548 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 3 min38 subs | 10 min151 subs | 40 min601 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 3 min43 subs | 11 min172 subs | 46 min686 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 4 min56 subs | 15 min224 subs | 1 h894 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 5 min81 subs | 21 min323 subs | 1 h 26 min1,290 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 8 min120 subs | 32 min477 subs | 2 h 07 min1,906 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 13 min202 subs | 54 min805 subs | 3 h 35 min3,218 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 19 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, and 30% off the battery for a December night.)
- 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.
- 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 eQuinox 2 →
How it frames
The Orion Nebula is 85′ × 60′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it is 2.5× 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.
Filters
The Orion Nebula is an emission target, where a dual-band filter would normally cut the time several-fold from a lit sky, but the eQuinox 2 has no dual-band option: 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 figures above are for the No filter position, and a darker sky is the lever that remains.
About the Orion Nebula
The brightest nebula in the northern sky and the one every smart scope gets pointed at first. The core saturates in a minute; the wings and the Running Man need real time. Mix short and long stacks.
M42, NGC 1976 · Emission nebula in Orion · magnitude 4.0 · 85′ × 60′ · best in Nov, Dec, Jan. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Emission nebulae glow in a few narrow lines, mostly hydrogen-alpha (deep red) and doubly ionised oxygen (teal). A dual-band filter passes those lines and blocks most skyglow, which is why it cuts the time needed from a suburban sky so dramatically. Use it. From a genuinely dark site the gain is smaller because there is less skyglow to block, and read noise becomes the limit, which is where longer subs (EQ mode, or Expert Mode on a Vespera) earn their keep.
Stars lose colour through a dual-band filter; a short broadband stack blended in fixes that if you care.
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 Orion Nebula from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Orion Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50: 12 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 14 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30: 14 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 15 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 16 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 12 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the DwarfLab Draco: 15 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 57 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera II: 17 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 38 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 16 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 36 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the Unistellar Odyssey: 1 h 08 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the Celestron Origin: 5 min from Bortle 6
- Orion Nebula with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 6 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Orion Nebula · All targets for the eQuinox 2