How long to image the Black Eye Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera 3 needs about 33 min (197 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Black Eye Galaxy. A quick look takes 8 min; a showpiece 2 h 11 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 14 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 11% 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 | 3 min19 subs | 13 min76 subs | 50 min301 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 3 min20 subs | 13 min79 subs | 53 min316 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 4 min22 subs | 14 min86 subs | 57 min344 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 4 min26 subs | 17 min103 subs | 1 h 09 min412 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 5 min33 subs | 22 min131 subs | 1 h 27 min521 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 8 min50 subs | 33 min197 subs | 2 h 11 min787 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 13 min81 subs | 54 min324 subs | 3 h 35 min1,293 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 22 min130 subs | 1 h 27 min520 subs | 5 h 47 min2,080 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 39 min235 subs | 2 h 37 min940 subs | 10 h3,758 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 43 min of run time. The Vespera 3’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 30WVaonis says an external bank extends sessions; 30 W PD as for the II and Pro.
- 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 3 →
How it frames
The Black Eye Galaxy is 10′ × 5′ across. The Vespera 3 frames 2.60° × 1.46° at 2.44″ per pixel, so it fills 11% 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; CovalENS mosaic widens the field to 4.3° × 2.4°. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 14 min86 subs | 22 min131 subs | 54 min324 subs |
| 20 s | 13 min38 subs | 20 min61 subs | 52 min157 subs |
| 30 s | 15 min30 subs | 19 min39 subs | 52 min104 subs |
About the Black Eye Galaxy
A bright spiral with a dark dust band across the nucleus. The eye shows within an hour on a 50 mm scope.
M64, NGC 4826 · Galaxy in Coma Berenices · magnitude 8.5 · 10′ × 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 Vaonis Vespera 3
The 2026 Vespera: same 50 mm quadruplet class as the II on an 8 MP IMX585, with a 24 MP mosaic mode and 11 hours of battery. Per pixel it behaves like a Seestar S50 Pro without the built-in dual-band filter.
10 s subs by default; Expert Mode manual targets allow 1 to 30 s. Alt-azimuth only; CovalENS mosaic widens the field to 4.3° × 2.4°. Optional clip-on Vaonis filters: dual-band, light-pollution (CLS) and solar. The new optical baffle is not a substitute for a CLS filter.
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 Black Eye Galaxy from a Vespera 3? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Black Eye Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 34 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 37 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 36 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 40 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 50 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 34 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 28 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 1 h 55 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 34 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 1 h 16 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 1 h 13 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 30 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 2 h 18 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 9 min from Bortle 6
- Black Eye Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 13 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Black Eye Galaxy · All targets for the Vespera 3