How long to image the Pleiades with the Celestron Origin
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Celestron Origin needs about 43 min (257 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Pleiades. A quick look takes 11 min; a showpiece 2 h 51 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 14 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 2.1× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 3 min17 subs | 11 min67 subs | 45 min268 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 3 min19 subs | 12 min73 subs | 48 min291 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 3 min21 subs | 14 min84 subs | 56 min335 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 5 min28 subs | 18 min111 subs | 1 h 14 min442 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 6 min39 subs | 25 min153 subs | 1 h 42 min611 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 11 min65 subs | 43 min257 subs | 2 h 51 min1,026 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 19 min114 subs | 1 h 16 min455 subs | 5 h 03 min1,817 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 32 min191 subs | 2 h 07 min762 subs | 8 h 28 min3,046 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 59 min355 subs | 3 h 56 min1,417 subs | 16 h5,666 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 56 min of run time. The Origin’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 in the field; the dew shield and heater are already 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 →
How it frames
The Pleiades is 110′ across. The Origin frames 1.27° × 0.85° at 1.48″ 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.
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. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 14 min84 subs | 25 min153 subs | 1 h 16 min455 subs |
| 15 s | 13 min52 subs | 24 min98 subs | 1 h 15 min299 subs |
| 30 s | 15 min30 subs | 23 min47 subs | 1 h 14 min148 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
The first-generation Origin: a 6-inch f/2.2 RASA in a smart package and the fastest system here by a wide margin. Superseded by the Mark II in late 2025 and no longer sold new; Celestron offers a camera upgrade to the Mark II sensor.
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. 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? 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 Mark II: 59 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Pleiades · All targets for the Origin