How long to image the Butterfly Cluster with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro needs about 5 min (30 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Butterfly Cluster. A quick look takes 2 min; a showpiece 15 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 5 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 19% 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 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 17 min104 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 2 min10 subs | 6 min39 subs | 25 min153 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 3 min17 subs | 11 min65 subs | 43 min258 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 7 min of run time. The Seestar S30 Pro’s battery (rated about 5 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 10000mAh 5V 3A5 V 3 A input and it runs while charging.
- Seestar S30 Pro dew shieldActive anti-dew is built in; a shield adds margin. The S30 Pro front differs from the S30, so check the listing.
- 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 Seestar S30 Pro →
How it frames
The Butterfly Cluster is 25′ across. The Seestar S30 Pro frames 3.99° × 2.24° at 3.74″ per pixel, so it fills 19% of the frame’s short side.
Longer subs
10, 20 and 30 s in Alt-Az; 60 s only in EQ mode, which needs the TH10 head. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 5 min30 subs | 5 min30 subs | 5 min30 subs |
| 20 s | 10 min30 subs | 10 min30 subs | 10 min30 subs |
| 30 s | 15 min30 subs | 15 min30 subs | 15 min30 subs |
| 60 s | 30 min30 subs | 30 min30 subs | 30 min30 subs |
Leave the dual-band filter out for the Butterfly Cluster. It is an open cluster, and it shines right across the spectrum. A dual-band filter keeps two emission lines and throws the rest away, so most of the light you came for is being stopped along with the sky. From a Bortle 6 sky it would be roughly 6 times slower.
About the Butterfly Cluster
An open cluster whose brighter stars trace a butterfly shape. A southern summer target, low from northern Europe.
M6, NGC 6405 · Open cluster in Scorpius · magnitude 4.2 · 25′ · best in May, Jun, Jul. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Open clusters are the easiest targets in the sky. The stars are bright, so the aim is colour and tight stars rather than depth: short subs, no filter, and stop before the bright members saturate. The nominal time here gets you clean star colour; more integration only adds background stars.
About the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro
The S30 optics upgraded to a quadruplet in front of an 8 MP IMX585. Same speed per pixel as the S30, four times the pixels, so you can crop hard.
10, 20 and 30 s in Alt-Az; 60 s only in EQ mode, which needs the TH10 head. Built-in UV/IR-cut, dual-band (OIII 30 nm / Hα 20 nm) and dark filters on the telephoto camera.
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 60 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 Butterfly Cluster from a Seestar S30 Pro? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Butterfly Cluster with the ZWO Seestar S50: 5 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 5 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the ZWO Seestar S30: 5 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 8 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 8 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the DwarfLab Draco: 15 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 8 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the Vaonis Vespera II: 5 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 6 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 5 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 5 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 2 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the Unistellar Odyssey: 9 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the Celestron Origin: 5 min from Bortle 6
- Butterfly Cluster with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 5 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Butterfly Cluster · All targets for the Seestar S30 Pro