How long to image the M77 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 26 min (395 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the M77. A quick look takes 7 min; a showpiece 1 h 45 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 16 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 20% 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 | 4 min58 subs | 15 min229 subs | 1 h 01 min916 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 4 min59 subs | 16 min235 subs | 1 h 02 min937 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 4 min61 subs | 16 min244 subs | 1 h 05 min975 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 4 min67 subs | 18 min267 subs | 1 h 11 min1,068 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 5 min76 subs | 20 min304 subs | 1 h 21 min1,215 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 7 min99 subs | 26 min395 subs | 1 h 45 min1,577 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 9 min142 subs | 38 min567 subs | 2 h 31 min2,266 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 14 min209 subs | 56 min834 subs | 3 h 42 min3,336 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 23 min352 subs | 1 h 34 min1,405 subs | 6 h 15 min5,619 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 34 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, and 30% off the battery for a November night.)
- 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.
- hand warmers long lastingAir-activated packs give hours of heat for the person; winter nights are long and you spend most of them standing still.
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Everything that fits the eQuinox 2 →
How it frames
The M77 is 7′ × 6′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it fills 20% of the frame’s short side.
About the M77
A Seyfert galaxy with a blazing core and faint outer arms. The nucleus is easy; the arms are not.
NGC 1068 · Galaxy in Cetus · magnitude 8.9 · 7′ × 6′ · best in Oct, Nov, Dec. 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 M77 from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- M77 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 30 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 33 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 32 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 35 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 44 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 30 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the DwarfLab Draco: 25 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 1 h 41 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 30 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 1 h 07 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 29 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 1 h 04 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the Unistellar Odyssey: 1 h 59 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the Celestron Origin: 8 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 11 min from Bortle 6