How long to image the M79 with the Unistellar Odyssey
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar Odyssey needs about 1 h 02 min (925 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the M79. A quick look takes 15 min; a showpiece 4 h 06 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 43 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 27% 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 | 10 min156 subs | 41 min623 subs | 2 h 46 min2,489 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 11 min158 subs | 42 min632 subs | 2 h 48 min2,526 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 11 min163 subs | 43 min649 subs | 2 h 53 min2,596 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 12 min173 subs | 46 min692 subs | 3 h 04 min2,766 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 13 min190 subs | 51 min759 subs | 3 h 22 min3,036 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 15 min232 subs | 1 h 02 min925 subs | 4 h 06 min3,698 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 21 min310 subs | 1 h 23 min1,240 subs | 5 h 31 min4,958 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 29 min433 subs | 1 h 55 min1,729 subs | 7 h 41 min6,916 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 46 min694 subs | 3 h 05 min2,773 subs | 12 h11,090 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 20 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 December 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 M79 is 9′ across. The Odyssey frames 0.75° × 0.56° at 0.93″ per pixel, so it fills 27% of the frame’s short side.
About the M79
A winter globular below Orion, unusual for the season. Low but compact.
NGC 1904 · Globular cluster in Lepus · magnitude 7.7 · 9′ · best in Nov, Dec, Jan. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Globular clusters are point sources packed tight, so they come quickly: the core resolves into stars within a handful of minutes on any smart scope. More time deepens the halo and pulls in the faint outer members. Use short subs so the core does not saturate into a white blob, and no filter.
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 M79 from a Odyssey? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- M79 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 16 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 17 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 17 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 18 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 23 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 16 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the DwarfLab Draco: 15 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 53 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 16 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 35 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 15 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 34 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 14 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the Celestron Origin: 5 min from Bortle 6
- M79 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 6 min from Bortle 6