How long to image the NGC 1893 with the Unistellar Odyssey
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar Odyssey needs about 12 min (185 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the NGC 1893. A quick look takes 3 min; a showpiece 49 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 9 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 33% 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 min34 subs | 9 min134 subs | 36 min534 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 2 min34 subs | 9 min135 subs | 36 min540 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 2 min35 subs | 9 min138 subs | 37 min552 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 2 min37 subs | 10 min146 subs | 39 min581 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 3 min40 subs | 10 min157 subs | 42 min627 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 3 min47 subs | 12 min185 subs | 49 min740 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 4 min60 subs | 16 min239 subs | 1 h 04 min956 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 5 min81 subs | 22 min323 subs | 1 h 26 min1,291 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 8 min126 subs | 33 min502 subs | 2 h 14 min2,005 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 16 min of run time. The Odyssey’s battery (rated about 5 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, and 30% off the battery for a December night.)
- 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.
- 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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Everything that fits the Odyssey →
How it frames
The NGC 1893 is 11′ across. The Odyssey frames 0.75° × 0.56° at 0.93″ per pixel, so it fills 33% of the frame’s short side.
About the NGC 1893
The young cluster lighting the Tadpoles Nebula. Comes free in any IC 410 stack.
IC 410 cluster · Open cluster in Auriga · magnitude 7.5 · 11′ · best in Nov, Dec, Jan. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Open clusters are the easiest targets in the sky. The stars are bright, so the aim is colour and tight stars rather than depth: short subs, no filter, and stop before the bright members saturate. The nominal time here gets you clean star colour; more integration only adds background stars.
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 NGC 1893 from a Odyssey? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- NGC 1893 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 5 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 5 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 5 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 5 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 8 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 8 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the DwarfLab Draco: 15 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 11 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 5 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 8 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 5 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 7 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 3 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the Celestron Origin: 5 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 1893 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 5 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the NGC 1893 · All targets for the Odyssey