How long to image the Whirlpool Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 52 min (787 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Whirlpool Galaxy. A quick look takes 13 min; a showpiece 3 h 30 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 31 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 32% 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 | 7 min109 subs | 29 min434 subs | 1 h 56 min1,733 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 7 min111 subs | 30 min444 subs | 1 h 58 min1,776 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 8 min117 subs | 31 min465 subs | 2 h 04 min1,859 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 9 min129 subs | 34 min515 subs | 2 h 17 min2,058 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 10 min149 subs | 40 min594 subs | 2 h 38 min2,373 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 13 min197 subs | 52 min787 subs | 3 h 30 min3,147 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 19 min289 subs | 1 h 17 min1,156 subs | 5 h 08 min4,621 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 29 min432 subs | 1 h 55 min1,728 subs | 7 h 41 min6,910 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 49 min737 subs | 3 h 17 min2,948 subs | 13 h11,791 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 08 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.)
- 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.
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Everything that fits the eQuinox 2 →
How it frames
The Whirlpool Galaxy is 11′ × 7′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it fills 32% of the frame’s short side.
About the Whirlpool Galaxy
The classic face-on spiral with its companion tugging at one arm. Small in a smart scope but bright; the arms appear within an hour, the tidal bridge needs several.
M51, NGC 5194 · Galaxy in Canes Venatici · magnitude 8.4 · 11′ × 7′ · best in Mar, Apr, May. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Galaxies are broadband targets: their light is mostly starlight spread across the spectrum, so a dual-band filter throws most of it away and makes things slower, not faster. Shoot without a filter (or with a plain UV/IR cut) and rely on total time and a dark sky. The core of a galaxy is usually many times brighter than its outer disc, so a short stack shows the nucleus long before the arms; the figures here are for the arms and disc, not the core.
Field rotation in Alt-Az mode crops the edges of the stack over a long session, so on a big galaxy re-centre now and then or use EQ mode where your scope supports it.
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 Whirlpool Galaxy from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 59 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 1 h 04 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 1 h 01 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 1 h 08 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 1 h 25 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 58 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 48 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 3 h 19 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 59 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 2 h 11 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 56 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 2 h 05 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 4 h 01 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 16 min from Bortle 6
- Whirlpool Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 21 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Whirlpool Galaxy · All targets for the eQuinox 2