How long to image the M55 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 12 min (180 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the M55. A quick look takes 3 min; a showpiece 48 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 7 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 56% 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 | 2 min27 subs | 7 min105 subs | 28 min418 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 2 min27 subs | 7 min107 subs | 28 min427 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 2 min28 subs | 7 min112 subs | 30 min445 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 2 min31 subs | 8 min122 subs | 32 min487 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 2 min35 subs | 9 min139 subs | 37 min554 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 3 min45 subs | 12 min180 subs | 48 min718 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 4 min65 subs | 17 min258 subs | 1 h 09 min1,032 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 6 min95 subs | 25 min380 subs | 1 h 41 min1,518 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 11 min160 subs | 43 min639 subs | 2 h 50 min2,555 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 16 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 M55 is 19′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it fills 56% of the frame’s short side.
About the M55
A large, loose globular that resolves easily but sits low for northern imagers.
NGC 6809 · Globular cluster in Sagittarius · magnitude 6.3 · 19′ · best in Jun, Jul, Aug. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Globular clusters are point sources packed tight, so they come quickly: the core resolves into stars within a handful of minutes on any smart scope. More time deepens the halo and pulls in the faint outer members. Use short subs so the core does not saturate into a white blob, and no filter.
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 M55 from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- M55 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 14 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 15 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 14 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 16 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 20 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 14 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the DwarfLab Draco: 15 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 46 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 14 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 31 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 13 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 29 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the Unistellar Odyssey: 54 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the Celestron Origin: 5 min from Bortle 6
- M55 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 5 min from Bortle 6