How long to image the NGC 1333 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera Pro needs about 14 h (4,899 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the NGC 1333. A quick look takes 3 h 24 min; a showpiece 54 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 5 h 36 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 6% 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 | 1 h 12 min434 subs | 4 h 49 min1,736 subs | 19 h6,942 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 1 h 16 min459 subs | 5 h 05 min1,833 subs | 20 h7,331 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 1 h 24 min505 subs | 5 h 36 min2,017 subs | 22 h8,066 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 1 h 43 min616 subs | 6 h 50 min2,462 subs | 27 h9,846 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 2 h 12 min792 subs | 8 h 48 min3,168 subs | 35 h12,669 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 3 h 24 min1,225 subs | 14 h4,899 subs | 54 h19,593 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 5 h 42 min2,050 subs | 23 h8,197 subs | 91 h32,787 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 9 h 15 min3,330 subs | 37 h13,319 subs | 150+ h53,273 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 17 h6,061 subs | 67 h24,241 subs | 270+ h96,963 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 18 h of run time. That is more than one night: over 3 nights, about 5 h 54 min each. The Vespera Pro’s battery (rated about 11 h) should cover each night; 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 November night.)
- USB-C PD power bank 20000mAh 30WExtends the 11 h battery; 30 W PD per Vaonis.
- 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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How it frames
The NGC 1333 is 6′ × 3′ across. The Vespera Pro frames 1.62° × 1.62° at 1.65″ per pixel, so it fills 6% 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, no EQ mode. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 5 h 36 min2,017 subs | 8 h 48 min3,168 subs | 23 h8,197 subs |
| 20 s | 4 h 36 min827 subs | 7 h 47 min1,403 subs | 22 h3,917 subs |
| 30 s | 4 h 15 min511 subs | 7 h 27 min895 subs | 21 h2,572 subs |
About the NGC 1333
A blue reflection nebula amid a maze of dark dust and red Herbig-Haro jets. Broadband, dark sky, long stack.
Perseus Molecular Cloud · Reflection nebula in Perseus · magnitude 9.5 · 6′ × 3′ · best in Oct, Nov, Dec. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Reflection nebulae are starlight scattered by dust, so they are broadband and blue. A dual-band filter removes almost all of it; do not use one. These are among the faintest structures a smart scope can attempt and the figures run long. A dark sky matters more here than for any other type, and the Moon must be down.
About the Vaonis Vespera Pro
The square-sensor Vespera with 2 µm pixels. Higher resolution than the II, and correspondingly slower per pixel: expect around double the time for the same per-pixel SNR. Run-out in 2026 and replaced by the Vespera Pro 2.
10 s subs by default; Expert Mode manual targets allow 1 to 30 s. Alt-azimuth only, no EQ mode. Optional clip-on Vaonis filters: dual-band, light-pollution (CLS) and solar.
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 NGC 1333 from a Vespera Pro? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- NGC 1333 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 6 h 04 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 6 h 38 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 6 h 23 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 7 h 02 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 8 h 48 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 6 h 02 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the DwarfLab Draco: 4 h 59 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 21 h from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 6 h 04 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 5 h 48 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 13 h from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 5 h 33 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the Unistellar Odyssey: 26 h from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the Celestron Origin: 1 h 36 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1333 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 2 h 12 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the NGC 1333 · All targets for the Vespera Pro