How long to image the Cigar Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the DwarfLab DWARF 3 needs about 50 min (202 subs of 15 s) for a solid image of the Cigar Galaxy. A quick look takes 13 min; a showpiece 3 h 22 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 20 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 11% 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 min18 subs | 17 min70 subs | 1 h 09 min278 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 5 min19 subs | 18 min74 subs | 1 h 13 min294 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 5 min21 subs | 20 min82 subs | 1 h 21 min325 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 6 min25 subs | 25 min100 subs | 1 h 40 min399 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 8 min33 subs | 32 min130 subs | 2 h 09 min518 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 13 min51 subs | 50 min202 subs | 3 h 22 min808 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 21 min86 subs | 1 h 25 min341 subs | 5 h 40 min1,361 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 35 min139 subs | 2 h 19 min555 subs | 9 h 15 min2,219 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 1 h 03 min254 subs | 4 h 13 min1,013 subs | 17 h4,050 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 06 min of run time. The DWARF 3’s battery (rated about 5 h 30 min) 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 February night.)
- USB-C PD power bank 20000mAh 18W18 W PD input and it runs while charging; needs a C-to-C cable for PD.
- 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.
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 DWARF 3 →
How it frames
The Cigar Galaxy is 11′ × 4′ across. The DWARF 3 frames 2.93° × 1.65° at 2.75″ per pixel, so it fills 11% of the frame’s short side.
Longer subs
Auto mode caps subs at 15 s; 30 s and longer need EQ mode, and 60 s is the ceiling on the tele camera. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 s | 20 min82 subs | 32 min130 subs | 1 h 25 min341 subs |
| 30 s | 19 min39 subs | 31 min63 subs | 1 h 24 min168 subs |
| 60 s | 30 min30 subs | 31 min31 subs | 1 h 23 min84 subs |
Leave the dual-band filter out for the Cigar Galaxy. It is a galaxy, and it shines right across the spectrum. A dual-band filter keeps two emission lines and throws the rest away, so most of the light you came for is being stopped along with the sky. From a Bortle 6 sky it would be roughly 10 times slower.
About the Cigar Galaxy
An edge-on starburst galaxy with red hydrogen jets bursting from its core. Dual-band pulls the jets out of the glare.
M82, NGC 3034 · Galaxy in Ursa Major · magnitude 8.4 · 11′ × 4′ · best in Jan, Feb, Mar. 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 DwarfLab DWARF 3
Small pixels on a 35 mm f/4.3 lens give a sharper image than its aperture suggests, and EQ mode with 60 s subs makes it the read-noise winner in dark skies.
Auto mode caps subs at 15 s; 30 s and longer need EQ mode, and 60 s is the ceiling on the tele camera. Three built-in filters: VIS, Astro (430 to 690 nm) and dual-band Hα 656 nm / OIII 501 nm.
Longer subs matter most under dark skies, where read noise rather than skyglow sets the floor. From a city the difference between 15 s and 60 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 Cigar Galaxy from a DWARF 3? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Cigar Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 35 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 38 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 36 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 40 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 34 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 28 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 1 h 57 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 35 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 1 h 17 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 33 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 1 h 13 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 31 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 2 h 20 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 9 min from Bortle 6
- Cigar Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 13 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Cigar Galaxy · All targets for the DWARF 3