How long to image the Whirlpool Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera Pro needs about 2 h 11 min (785 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Whirlpool Galaxy. A quick look takes 33 min; a showpiece 8 h 43 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 58 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 fills 11% 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 | 13 min77 subs | 51 min308 subs | 3 h 25 min1,231 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 13 min81 subs | 54 min323 subs | 3 h 35 min1,289 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 15 min88 subs | 58 min350 subs | 3 h 53 min1,400 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 17 min105 subs | 1 h 09 min417 subs | 4 h 38 min1,668 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 22 min131 subs | 1 h 27 min524 subs | 5 h 49 min2,094 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 33 min197 subs | 2 h 11 min785 subs | 8 h 43 min3,138 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 53 min321 subs | 3 h 34 min1,282 subs | 14 h5,127 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 1 h 26 min514 subs | 5 h 42 min2,054 subs | 23 h8,215 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 2 h 34 min926 subs | 10 h3,701 subs | 41 h14,802 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 2 h 50 min of run time. The Vespera Pro’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 PD power bank 20000mAh 30WExtends the 11 h battery; 30 W PD per Vaonis.
- 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 Vespera Pro →
How it frames
The Whirlpool Galaxy is 11′ × 7′ across. The Vespera Pro frames 1.62° × 1.62° at 1.65″ per pixel, so it fills 11% of the frame’s short side.
Longer subs
10 s subs by default; Expert Mode manual targets allow 1 to 30 s. Alt-azimuth only, no EQ mode. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 58 min350 subs | 1 h 27 min524 subs | 3 h 34 min1,282 subs |
| 20 s | 49 min148 subs | 1 h 18 min235 subs | 3 h 24 min614 subs |
| 30 s | 46 min93 subs | 1 h 15 min151 subs | 3 h 21 min403 subs |
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 Vaonis Vespera Pro
The square-sensor Vespera with 2 µm pixels. Higher resolution than the II, and correspondingly slower per pixel: expect around double the time for the same per-pixel SNR. Run-out in 2026 and replaced by the Vespera Pro 2.
10 s subs by default; Expert Mode manual targets allow 1 to 30 s. Alt-azimuth only, no EQ mode. Optional clip-on Vaonis filters: dual-band, light-pollution (CLS) and solar.
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 Whirlpool Galaxy from a Vespera Pro? 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 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 eQuinox 2: 52 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 Vespera Pro