How long to image the M77 with the Vaonis Vespera 3
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera 3 needs about 29 min (174 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the M77. A quick look takes 7 min; a showpiece 1 h 55 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 13 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 8% 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 min18 subs | 12 min72 subs | 48 min286 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 3 min19 subs | 12 min75 subs | 50 min298 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 3 min21 subs | 13 min81 subs | 54 min322 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 4 min24 subs | 16 min95 subs | 1 h 03 min379 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 5 min30 subs | 20 min118 subs | 1 h 18 min470 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 7 min44 subs | 29 min174 subs | 1 h 55 min693 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 12 min70 subs | 47 min280 subs | 3 h 06 min1,118 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 19 min112 subs | 1 h 14 min445 subs | 4 h 56 min1,778 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 33 min199 subs | 2 h 13 min796 subs | 8 h 51 min3,184 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 38 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, and 30% off the battery for a November night.)
- 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.
- 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 Vespera 3 →
How it frames
The M77 is 7′ × 6′ across. The Vespera 3 frames 2.60° × 1.46° at 2.44″ per pixel, so it fills 8% 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 | 13 min81 subs | 20 min118 subs | 47 min280 subs |
| 20 s | 12 min37 subs | 18 min55 subs | 45 min136 subs |
| 30 s | 15 min30 subs | 18 min36 subs | 45 min90 subs |
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 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 M77 from a Vespera 3? 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 Pro 2: 1 h 04 min from Bortle 6
- M77 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 26 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