How long to image the Sunflower Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 1 h 30 min (1,343 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Sunflower Galaxy. A quick look takes 22 min; a showpiece 5 h 58 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 52 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 37% 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 | 12 min181 subs | 48 min724 subs | 3 h 13 min2,895 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 12 min186 subs | 50 min743 subs | 3 h 18 min2,972 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 13 min195 subs | 52 min779 subs | 3 h 28 min3,115 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 14 min217 subs | 58 min866 subs | 3 h 51 min3,464 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 17 min251 subs | 1 h 07 min1,004 subs | 4 h 28 min4,016 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 22 min336 subs | 1 h 30 min1,343 subs | 5 h 58 min5,371 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 33 min498 subs | 2 h 13 min1,989 subs | 8 h 50 min7,954 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 50 min748 subs | 3 h 19 min2,991 subs | 13 h11,963 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 1 h 25 min1,283 subs | 5 h 42 min5,129 subs | 23 h20,513 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 56 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 Sunflower Galaxy is 12.6′ × 7.2′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it fills 37% of the frame’s short side.
About the Sunflower Galaxy
A flocculent spiral whose arms break into patches like sunflower seeds. Bright core, subtle outer disc.
M63, NGC 5055 · Galaxy in Canes Venatici · magnitude 8.6 · 12.6′ × 7.2′ · 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 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 Sunflower Galaxy from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Sunflower Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 1 h 39 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 1 h 48 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 1 h 44 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 1 h 55 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 2 h 24 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 1 h 38 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 1 h 21 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 5 h 38 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 1 h 39 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 3 h 41 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 1 h 34 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 3 h 31 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 6 h 54 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 26 min from Bortle 6
- Sunflower Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 36 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Sunflower Galaxy · All targets for the eQuinox 2