How long to image the 47 Tucanae with the Vaonis Vespera 3
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera 3 needs about 5 min (30 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the 47 Tucanae. A quick look takes 2 min; a showpiece 15 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 5 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 35% 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 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 15 min90 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 2 min10 subs | 5 min30 subs | 16 min98 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 2 min11 subs | 7 min41 subs | 27 min163 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 7 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.)
- 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.
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Everything that fits the Vespera 3 →
How it frames
The 47 Tucanae is 31′ across. The Vespera 3 frames 2.60° × 1.46° at 2.44″ per pixel, so it fills 35% 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 | 5 min30 subs | 5 min30 subs | 5 min30 subs |
| 20 s | 10 min30 subs | 10 min30 subs | 10 min30 subs |
| 30 s | 15 min30 subs | 15 min30 subs | 15 min30 subs |
About the 47 Tucanae
The second-brightest globular, with a blazing core, next to the Small Magellanic Cloud. Far southern sky only.
NGC 104, Caldwell 106 · Globular cluster in Tucana · magnitude 4.0 · 31′ · best in Sep, Oct, Nov. Southern hemisphere only.
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 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 47 Tucanae from a Vespera 3? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- 47 Tucanae with the ZWO Seestar S50: 5 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 5 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the ZWO Seestar S30: 5 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 5 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 8 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 8 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the DwarfLab Draco: 15 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 8 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the Vaonis Vespera II: 5 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 5 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 5 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 2 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the Unistellar Odyssey: 7 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the Celestron Origin: 5 min from Bortle 6
- 47 Tucanae with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 5 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the 47 Tucanae · All targets for the Vespera 3