How long to image the M95 with the Unistellar Odyssey
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar Odyssey needs about 15 h (13,265 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the M95. A quick look takes 3 h 41 min; a showpiece 59 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 9 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 | 2 h 20 min2,107 subs | 9 h 22 min8,427 subs | 37 h33,705 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 2 h 23 min2,144 subs | 9 h 32 min8,575 subs | 38 h34,299 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 2 h 28 min2,214 subs | 9 h 50 min8,856 subs | 39 h35,424 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 2 h 39 min2,385 subs | 11 h9,537 subs | 42 h38,148 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 2 h 57 min2,655 subs | 12 h10,617 subs | 47 h42,466 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 3 h 41 min3,317 subs | 15 h13,265 subs | 59 h53,059 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 5 h 05 min4,578 subs | 20 h18,311 subs | 81 h73,244 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 7 h 16 min6,537 subs | 29 h26,147 subs | 120+ h104,585 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 12 h10,715 subs | 48 h42,857 subs | 190+ h171,425 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 19 h of run time. That is more than one night: over 3 nights, about 6 h 23 min each. The Odyssey’s battery is rated at about 5 h, so each night needs an external power bank. (Bortle 6, solid image; we allow 30% over the integration time.)
- 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.
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Everything that fits the Odyssey →
How it frames
The M95 is 7.4′ × 5′ across. The Odyssey frames 0.75° × 0.56° at 0.93″ 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 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 M95 from a Odyssey? 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 eQuinox 2: 3 h 11 min 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