How long to image the Pleiades with the Celestron Origin Mark II
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Celestron Origin Mark II needs about 59 min (352 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Pleiades. A quick look takes 15 min; a showpiece 3 h 54 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 17 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 2.5× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 3 min20 subs | 13 min79 subs | 52 min314 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 4 min22 subs | 14 min87 subs | 58 min347 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 4 min26 subs | 17 min103 subs | 1 h 08 min411 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 6 min36 subs | 23 min141 subs | 1 h 34 min564 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 8 min51 subs | 34 min202 subs | 2 h 15 min808 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 15 min88 subs | 59 min352 subs | 3 h 54 min1,406 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 27 min160 subs | 1 h 46 min637 subs | 7 h 04 min2,545 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 45 min270 subs | 3 h1,079 subs | 12 h4,314 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 1 h 24 min506 subs | 5 h 37 min2,022 subs | 22 h8,087 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 16 min of run time. The Origin Mark II’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, and 30% off the battery for a November night.)
- portable power station 300W AC outletRuns the supplied 12 V adapter off-grid; dew shield and heater are built in.
- 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 Origin Mark II →
How it frames
The Pleiades is 110′ across. The Origin Mark II frames 1.32° × 0.75° at 1.23″ 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.
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. Celestron warns the f/2.2 optics saturate quickly without the filter. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 17 min103 subs | 34 min202 subs | 1 h 46 min637 subs |
| 15 s | 17 min67 subs | 33 min134 subs | 1 h 46 min423 subs |
| 30 s | 16 min33 subs | 33 min66 subs | 1 h 45 min211 subs |
About the Pleiades
The stars take seconds. The blue reflection nebulosity around them is faint and needs hours from any sky, and no filter helps because it is starlight, not emission.
M45, Seven Sisters · Reflection nebula in Taurus · magnitude 1.6 · 110′ · best in Oct, Nov, Dec. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Reflection nebulae are starlight scattered by dust, so they are broadband and blue. A dual-band filter removes almost all of it; do not use one. These are among the faintest structures a smart scope can attempt and the figures run long. A dark sky matters more here than for any other type, and the Moon must be down.
About the Celestron Origin Mark II
The Origin Mark II (late 2025): the same 6-inch f/2.2 RASA with an 8 MP IMX678 in place of the original 6 MP IMX178. Smaller pixels for finer detail, a quieter sensor, and still the fastest system here by a wide margin.
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. Celestron warns the f/2.2 optics saturate quickly without the filter. 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 Pleiades from a Origin Mark II? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Pleiades with the ZWO Seestar S50: 2 h 42 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 2 h 57 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the ZWO Seestar S30: 2 h 50 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 3 h 08 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 3 h 55 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 2 h 41 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the DwarfLab Draco: 2 h 13 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 9 h 16 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the Vaonis Vespera II: 2 h 42 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 6 h 03 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 2 h 35 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 5 h 46 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 2 h 28 min from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the Unistellar Odyssey: 11 h from Bortle 6
- Pleiades with the Celestron Origin: 43 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Pleiades · All targets for the Origin Mark II