How long to image the M65 with the Unistellar Odyssey
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar Odyssey needs about 3 h 33 min (3,196 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the M65. A quick look takes 53 min; a showpiece 14 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 2 h 25 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 30% 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 | 34 min518 subs | 2 h 18 min2,069 subs | 9 h 12 min8,274 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 35 min526 subs | 2 h 20 min2,104 subs | 9 h 21 min8,413 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 36 min543 subs | 2 h 25 min2,169 subs | 9 h 38 min8,675 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 39 min582 subs | 2 h 35 min2,328 subs | 10 h9,309 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 43 min645 subs | 2 h 52 min2,579 subs | 11 h10,314 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 53 min799 subs | 3 h 33 min3,196 subs | 14 h12,781 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 1 h 13 min1,093 subs | 4 h 51 min4,371 subs | 19 h17,481 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 1 h 43 min1,549 subs | 6 h 53 min6,195 subs | 28 h24,778 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 2 h 48 min2,522 subs | 11 h10,086 subs | 45 h40,342 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 4 h 37 min of run time. The Odyssey’s battery is rated at about 5 h, which is cutting it fine; take a 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.
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 Odyssey →
How it frames
The M65 is 10′ × 3′ across. The Odyssey frames 0.75° × 0.56° at 0.93″ per pixel, so it fills 30% of the frame’s short side.
About the M65
One of the Leo Triplet, an inclined spiral with a bright core. Fits in a frame with M66 and NGC 3628.
NGC 3623 · Galaxy in Leo · magnitude 9.3 · 10′ × 3′ · best in Feb, Mar, Apr. 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 M65 from a Odyssey? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- M65 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 52 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 57 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 55 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 1 h from Bortle 6
- M65 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 1 h 16 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 52 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the DwarfLab Draco: 43 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 2 h 56 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 52 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 1 h 56 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 50 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 1 h 51 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 46 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the Celestron Origin: 14 min from Bortle 6
- M65 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 19 min from Bortle 6