How long to image the M62 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera Pro needs about 18 min (110 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the M62. A quick look takes 5 min; a showpiece 1 h 13 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 10 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 15% 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 min14 subs | 9 min53 subs | 35 min212 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 2 min14 subs | 9 min55 subs | 36 min219 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 2 min15 subs | 10 min58 subs | 39 min232 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 3 min17 subs | 11 min66 subs | 44 min264 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 3 min20 subs | 13 min79 subs | 52 min315 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 5 min28 subs | 18 min110 subs | 1 h 13 min439 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 7 min43 subs | 28 min170 subs | 1 h 53 min677 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 11 min66 subs | 44 min262 subs | 2 h 54 min1,045 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 19 min115 subs | 1 h 16 min458 subs | 5 h 05 min1,831 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 24 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.
Affiliate links: the retailer pays us a small commission and you pay the same price. These are search links to the named product, not endorsements of a particular listing; check the listing matches your model.
Everything that fits the Vespera Pro →
How it frames
The M62 is 15′ across. The Vespera Pro frames 1.62° × 1.62° at 1.65″ per pixel, so it fills 15% 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 | 10 min58 subs | 13 min79 subs | 28 min170 subs |
| 20 s | 10 min30 subs | 12 min37 subs | 27 min82 subs |
| 30 s | 15 min30 subs | 15 min30 subs | 27 min54 subs |
About the M62
A bright but lopsided globular near the galactic centre, low from northern latitudes.
NGC 6266 · Globular cluster in Ophiuchus · magnitude 6.5 · 15′ · best in May, Jun, Jul. 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 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 M62 from a Vespera Pro? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- M62 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 8 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 9 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 9 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 10 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 12 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 8 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the DwarfLab Draco: 15 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 27 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 8 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 8 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 17 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 7 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the Unistellar Odyssey: 32 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the Celestron Origin: 5 min from Bortle 6
- M62 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 5 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the M62 · All targets for the Vespera Pro