How long to image the M61 with the Unistellar Odyssey
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar Odyssey needs about 13 h (11,775 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the M61. A quick look takes 3 h 16 min; a showpiece 52 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 8 h 45 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 18% 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 h 05 min1,876 subs | 8 h 20 min7,503 subs | 33 h30,011 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 2 h 07 min1,909 subs | 8 h 29 min7,634 subs | 34 h30,536 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 2 h 11 min1,971 subs | 8 h 45 min7,882 subs | 35 h31,528 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 2 h 21 min2,121 subs | 9 h 26 min8,484 subs | 38 h33,934 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 2 h 37 min2,360 subs | 10 h9,437 subs | 42 h37,746 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 3 h 16 min2,944 subs | 13 h11,775 subs | 52 h47,100 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 4 h 31 min4,058 subs | 18 h16,231 subs | 72 h64,923 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 6 h 26 min5,788 subs | 26 h23,149 subs | 100+ h92,596 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 11 h9,476 subs | 42 h37,904 subs | 170+ h151,613 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 17 h of run time. That is more than one night: over 3 nights, about 5 h 40 min each. The Odyssey’s battery is rated at about 5 h, so each night needs an external power bank. (Bortle 6, solid image; we allow 30% over the integration time.)
- USB power bank 20000mAh 5V 2.4AUnistellar says plain 5 V 2.4 A and warns against fast or adaptive chargers.
- 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 Odyssey →
How it frames
The M61 is 6′ × 5.5′ across. The Odyssey frames 0.75° × 0.56° at 0.93″ per pixel, so it fills 18% of the frame’s short side.
About the M61
A face-on barred spiral at the southern end of the Virgo cluster, with well-defined arms.
NGC 4303 · Galaxy in Virgo · magnitude 9.7 · 6′ × 5.5′ · 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 Odyssey
Unistellar’s compact 85 mm with autofocus and tiny pixels. Sharp, but the fine sampling costs time on faint extended targets. The Odyssey Pro is the same telescope with an eyepiece added, so these figures apply to both.
Fixed 4 s subs in Enhanced Vision; they cannot be changed. No filter option; Unistellar says third-party filters cannot be fitted to the Odyssey.
The Odyssey 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 M61 from a Odyssey? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- M61 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 3 h 07 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 3 h 25 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 3 h 17 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 3 h 37 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 4 h 32 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 3 h 07 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the DwarfLab Draco: 2 h 34 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 11 h from Bortle 6
- M61 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 3 h 07 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 6 h 59 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 2 h 59 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 6 h 40 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 2 h 50 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the Celestron Origin: 50 min from Bortle 6
- M61 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 1 h 08 min from Bortle 6