How long to image the M60 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera Pro needs about 2 h 12 min (791 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the M60. A quick look takes 33 min; a showpiece 8 h 47 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 1 h 01 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 7% 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 | 14 min82 subs | 54 min325 subs | 3 h 36 min1,298 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 14 min85 subs | 56 min339 subs | 3 h 46 min1,355 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 15 min92 subs | 1 h 01 min366 subs | 4 h 04 min1,464 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 18 min108 subs | 1 h 12 min432 subs | 4 h 48 min1,726 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 22 min134 subs | 1 h 29 min536 subs | 5 h 57 min2,141 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 33 min198 subs | 2 h 12 min791 subs | 8 h 47 min3,161 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 53 min319 subs | 3 h 33 min1,276 subs | 14 h5,104 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 1 h 25 min508 subs | 5 h 38 min2,031 subs | 23 h8,121 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 2 h 32 min910 subs | 10 h3,639 subs | 40 h14,555 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 2 h 51 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 M60 is 7′ × 6′ across. The Vespera Pro frames 1.62° × 1.62° at 1.65″ per pixel, so it fills 7% 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 | 1 h 01 min366 subs | 1 h 29 min536 subs | 3 h 33 min1,276 subs |
| 20 s | 52 min157 subs | 1 h 20 min241 subs | 3 h 24 min612 subs |
| 30 s | 49 min99 subs | 1 h 17 min155 subs | 3 h 21 min402 subs |
About the M60
A giant elliptical with the spiral NGC 4647 touching it. A neat pair in one frame.
NGC 4649 · Galaxy in Virgo · magnitude 8.8 · 7′ × 6′ · 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 M60 from a Vespera Pro? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- M60 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 59 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 1 h 05 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 1 h 02 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 1 h 08 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 1 h 26 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 59 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the DwarfLab Draco: 49 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 3 h 19 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 59 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 56 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 2 h 06 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 52 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the Unistellar Odyssey: 4 h from Bortle 6
- M60 with the Celestron Origin: 16 min from Bortle 6
- M60 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 22 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the M60 · All targets for the Vespera Pro