How long to image the M95 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 3 h 11 min (2,866 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the M95. A quick look takes 48 min; a showpiece 13 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 1 h 50 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 22% 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 | 26 min384 subs | 1 h 42 min1,536 subs | 6 h 49 min6,141 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 26 min395 subs | 1 h 45 min1,577 subs | 7 h6,305 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 28 min414 subs | 1 h 50 min1,654 subs | 7 h 21 min6,614 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 31 min461 subs | 2 h 03 min1,841 subs | 8 h 11 min7,362 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 36 min535 subs | 2 h 22 min2,138 subs | 9 h 30 min8,549 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 48 min717 subs | 3 h 11 min2,866 subs | 13 h11,461 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 1 h 11 min1,064 subs | 4 h 43 min4,253 subs | 19 h17,009 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 1 h 47 min1,602 subs | 7 h 07 min6,406 subs | 28 h25,622 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 3 h 03 min2,750 subs | 12 h10,999 subs | 49 h43,993 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 4 h 08 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.)
- 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.
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 eQuinox 2 →
How it frames
The M95 is 7.4′ × 5′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it fills 22% of the frame’s short side.
About the M95
A barred spiral with a ring around its bar, in the Leo I group with M96 and M105.
NGC 3351 · Galaxy in Leo · magnitude 9.7 · 7.4′ × 5′ · best in Feb, Mar, Apr. 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 M95 from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- M95 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 3 h 30 min from Bortle 6
- M95 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 3 h 50 min from Bortle 6
- M95 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 3 h 41 min from Bortle 6
- M95 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 4 h 04 min from Bortle 6
- M95 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 5 h 05 min from Bortle 6
- M95 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 3 h 29 min from Bortle 6
- M95 with the DwarfLab Draco: 2 h 52 min from Bortle 6
- M95 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 12 h from Bortle 6
- M95 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 3 h 30 min from Bortle 6
- M95 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 7 h 51 min from Bortle 6
- M95 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 3 h 21 min from Bortle 6
- M95 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 7 h 29 min from Bortle 6
- M95 with the Unistellar Odyssey: 15 h from Bortle 6
- M95 with the Celestron Origin: 56 min from Bortle 6
- M95 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 1 h 16 min from Bortle 6