How long to image the Monkey Head Nebula with the Celestron Origin Mark II
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Celestron Origin Mark II needs about 59 min (352 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Monkey Head Nebula. A quick look takes 15 min; a showpiece 3 h 54 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 17 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 89% 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 | 3 min20 subs | 13 min79 subs | 52 min314 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 4 min22 subs | 14 min87 subs | 58 min347 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 4 min26 subs | 17 min103 subs | 1 h 08 min411 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 6 min36 subs | 23 min141 subs | 1 h 34 min564 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 8 min51 subs | 34 min202 subs | 2 h 15 min808 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 15 min88 subs | 59 min352 subs | 3 h 54 min1,406 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 27 min160 subs | 1 h 46 min637 subs | 7 h 04 min2,545 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 45 min270 subs | 3 h1,079 subs | 12 h4,314 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 1 h 24 min506 subs | 5 h 37 min2,022 subs | 22 h8,087 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 16 min of run time. The Origin Mark II’s battery (rated about 6 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 January night.)
- portable power station 300W AC outletRuns the supplied 12 V adapter off-grid; dew shield and heater are built in.
- 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.
Affiliate links: the retailer pays us a small commission and you pay the same price. These are search links to the named product, not endorsements of a particular listing; check the listing matches your model.
Everything that fits the Origin Mark II →
How it frames
The Monkey Head Nebula is 40′ × 30′ across. The Origin Mark II frames 1.32° × 0.75° at 1.23″ per pixel, so it fills 89% of the frame’s short side.
Longer subs
10 s auto subs (15 s with the Nebula Filter); manual 1 to 30 s on the alt-az mount, longer only with the EQ wedge, and 60 s and up needs the StarSense Autoguider too. Celestron warns the f/2.2 optics saturate quickly without the filter. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 17 min103 subs | 34 min202 subs | 1 h 46 min637 subs |
| 15 s | 17 min67 subs | 33 min134 subs | 1 h 46 min423 subs |
| 30 s | 16 min33 subs | 33 min66 subs | 1 h 45 min211 subs |
With and without the dual-band filter
| Filter | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| No filter | 17 min103 subs | 34 min202 subs | 1 h 46 min637 subs |
| dual-band (Nebula Filter), drawer | 13 min80 subs | 18 min110 subs | 40 min243 subs |
The Origin Mark II has no built-in dual-band filter. Filter drawer takes 1.25-inch or 2-inch filters, including dual-band; Celestron sells an optional Nebula Filter. On an emission target like this it is the single biggest upgrade you can make.
About the Monkey Head Nebula
A round emission cloud on the Orion-Gemini border with a profile like a monkey's face. Moderately bright, good with dual-band.
NGC 2174, Sh2-252 · Emission nebula in Orion · magnitude 6.8 · 40′ × 30′ · best in Dec, Jan, Feb. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Emission nebulae glow in a few narrow lines, mostly hydrogen-alpha (deep red) and doubly ionised oxygen (teal). A dual-band filter passes those lines and blocks most skyglow, which is why it cuts the time needed from a suburban sky so dramatically. Use it. From a genuinely dark site the gain is smaller because there is less skyglow to block, and read noise becomes the limit, which is where longer subs (EQ mode, or Expert Mode on a Vespera) earn their keep.
Stars lose colour through a dual-band filter; a short broadband stack blended in fixes that if you care.
About the Celestron Origin Mark II
The Origin Mark II (late 2025): the same 6-inch f/2.2 RASA with an 8 MP IMX678 in place of the original 6 MP IMX178. Smaller pixels for finer detail, a quieter sensor, and still the fastest system here by a wide margin.
10 s auto subs (15 s with the Nebula Filter); manual 1 to 30 s on the alt-az mount, longer only with the EQ wedge, and 60 s and up needs the StarSense Autoguider too. Celestron warns the f/2.2 optics saturate quickly without the filter. Filter drawer takes 1.25-inch or 2-inch filters, including dual-band; Celestron sells an optional Nebula 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 Monkey Head Nebula from a Origin Mark II? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Monkey Head Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50: 1 h 41 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 1 h 53 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30: 1 h 58 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 2 h 02 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 2 h 05 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 1 h 40 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the DwarfLab Draco: 1 h 20 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 9 h 16 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera II: 2 h 42 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 6 h 03 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 2 h 35 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 5 h 46 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 2 h 28 min from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the Unistellar Odyssey: 11 h from Bortle 6
- Monkey Head Nebula with the Celestron Origin: 43 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Monkey Head Nebula · All targets for the Origin Mark II