How long to image the Running Man Nebula with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 1 h (907 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Running Man Nebula. A quick look takes 15 min; a showpiece 4 h 02 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 35 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 58% 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 | 8 min123 subs | 33 min492 subs | 2 h 11 min1,967 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 8 min127 subs | 34 min505 subs | 2 h 15 min2,018 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 9 min133 subs | 35 min529 subs | 2 h 21 min2,114 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 10 min147 subs | 39 min587 subs | 2 h 36 min2,348 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 11 min170 subs | 45 min680 subs | 3 h 01 min2,718 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 15 min227 subs | 1 h907 subs | 4 h 02 min3,626 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 22 min335 subs | 1 h 29 min1,339 subs | 5 h 57 min5,356 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 34 min503 subs | 2 h 14 min2,011 subs | 8 h 56 min8,042 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 57 min861 subs | 3 h 50 min3,443 subs | 15 h13,771 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 19 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, and 30% off the battery for a December night.)
- 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.
- 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 eQuinox 2 →
How it frames
The Running Man Nebula is 20′ × 10′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it fills 58% of the frame’s short side.
About the Running Man Nebula
The blue reflection nebula just north of M42 with a dark figure running through it. Broadband only; it comes free in a long Orion stack.
NGC 1977, Sh2-279 · Reflection nebula in Orion · magnitude 7.0 · 20′ × 10′ · best in Nov, Dec, Jan. 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 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 Running Man Nebula from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Running Man Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50: 1 h 07 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 1 h 13 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30: 1 h 10 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 1 h 18 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 1 h 37 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 1 h 07 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the DwarfLab Draco: 55 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 3 h 48 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera II: 1 h 07 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 2 h 30 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 1 h 04 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 2 h 23 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the Unistellar Odyssey: 4 h 39 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the Celestron Origin: 18 min from Bortle 6
- Running Man Nebula with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 24 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Running Man Nebula · All targets for the eQuinox 2