How long to image the Pleiades with the Vaonis Vespera 3
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera 3 needs about 2 h 35 min (928 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Pleiades. A quick look takes 39 min; a showpiece 10 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 57 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 just over the frame at 1.3×.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 12 min72 subs | 48 min286 subs | 3 h 10 min1,141 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 13 min77 subs | 51 min305 subs | 3 h 23 min1,220 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 14 min86 subs | 57 min343 subs | 3 h 48 min1,369 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 18 min109 subs | 1 h 12 min433 subs | 4 h 48 min1,731 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 24 min144 subs | 1 h 36 min576 subs | 6 h 24 min2,304 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 39 min232 subs | 2 h 35 min928 subs | 10 h3,709 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 1 h 07 min400 subs | 4 h 26 min1,597 subs | 18 h6,388 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 1 h 50 min660 subs | 7 h 19 min2,637 subs | 29 h10,547 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 3 h 22 min1,214 subs | 13 h4,855 subs | 54 h19,417 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 3 h 21 min of run time. The Vespera 3’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 November night.)
- USB-C PD power bank 20000mAh 30WVaonis says an external bank extends sessions; 30 W PD as for the II and Pro.
- 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 Vespera 3 →
How it frames
The Pleiades is 110′ across. The Vespera 3 frames 2.60° × 1.46° at 2.44″ per pixel, so it is just over the frame at 1.3×. Point at the part you want; the edges will fall outside the frame.
Longer subs
10 s subs by default; Expert Mode manual targets allow 1 to 30 s. Alt-azimuth only; CovalENS mosaic widens the field to 4.3° × 2.4°. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 57 min343 subs | 1 h 36 min576 subs | 4 h 26 min1,597 subs |
| 20 s | 48 min145 subs | 1 h 27 min262 subs | 4 h 17 min773 subs |
| 30 s | 45 min91 subs | 1 h 24 min169 subs | 4 h 14 min509 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 Vaonis Vespera 3
The 2026 Vespera: same 50 mm quadruplet class as the II on an 8 MP IMX585, with a 24 MP mosaic mode and 11 hours of battery. Per pixel it behaves like a Seestar S50 Pro without the built-in dual-band filter.
10 s subs by default; Expert Mode manual targets allow 1 to 30 s. Alt-azimuth only; CovalENS mosaic widens the field to 4.3° × 2.4°. Optional clip-on Vaonis filters: dual-band, light-pollution (CLS) and solar. The new optical baffle is not a substitute for a CLS 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 Vespera 3? 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 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
- Pleiades with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 59 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Pleiades · All targets for the Vespera 3