How long to image the M77 with the Unistellar Odyssey
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar Odyssey needs about 1 h 59 min (1,787 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the M77. A quick look takes 30 min; a showpiece 7 h 57 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 1 h 23 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 21% 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 | 20 min297 subs | 1 h 19 min1,186 subs | 5 h 16 min4,744 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 20 min302 subs | 1 h 20 min1,205 subs | 5 h 21 min4,818 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 21 min310 subs | 1 h 23 min1,240 subs | 5 h 30 min4,958 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 22 min331 subs | 1 h 28 min1,324 subs | 5 h 53 min5,296 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 24 min365 subs | 1 h 37 min1,458 subs | 6 h 29 min5,832 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 30 min447 subs | 1 h 59 min1,787 subs | 7 h 57 min7,148 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 40 min604 subs | 2 h 41 min2,414 subs | 11 h9,656 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 56 min847 subs | 3 h 46 min3,388 subs | 15 h13,550 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 1 h 31 min1,366 subs | 6 h 04 min5,464 subs | 24 h21,853 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 2 h 35 min of run time. The Odyssey’s battery (rated about 5 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 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.
- 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 Odyssey →
How it frames
The M77 is 7′ × 6′ across. The Odyssey frames 0.75° × 0.56° at 0.93″ per pixel, so it fills 21% 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 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 M77 from a Odyssey? 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 eQuinox 2: 26 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