How long to image the Sculptor Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 26 min (389 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Sculptor Galaxy. A quick look takes 6 min; a showpiece 1 h 44 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 16 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 79% 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 | 4 min55 subs | 14 min218 subs | 58 min870 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 4 min56 subs | 15 min223 subs | 59 min891 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 4 min59 subs | 16 min233 subs | 1 h 02 min931 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 4 min65 subs | 17 min257 subs | 1 h 08 min1,027 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 5 min74 subs | 20 min295 subs | 1 h 19 min1,180 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 6 min98 subs | 26 min389 subs | 1 h 44 min1,555 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 9 min142 subs | 38 min568 subs | 2 h 31 min2,269 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 14 min212 subs | 56 min845 subs | 3 h 45 min3,378 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 24 min359 subs | 1 h 36 min1,436 subs | 6 h 23 min5,743 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 34 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.)
- 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.
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Everything that fits the eQuinox 2 →
How it frames
The Sculptor Galaxy is 27′ × 7′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it fills 79% of the frame’s short side.
About the Sculptor Galaxy
A big, dusty, nearly edge-on starburst galaxy, superb from the south and low but possible from mid-northern latitudes.
NGC 253, Caldwell 65, Silver Coin · Galaxy in Sculptor · magnitude 7.2 · 27′ × 7′ · best in Sep, Oct, Nov. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Galaxies are broadband targets: their light is mostly starlight spread across the spectrum, so a dual-band filter throws most of it away and makes things slower, not faster. Shoot without a filter (or with a plain UV/IR cut) and rely on total time and a dark sky. The core of a galaxy is usually many times brighter than its outer disc, so a short stack shows the nucleus long before the arms; the figures here are for the arms and disc, not the core.
Field rotation in Alt-Az mode crops the edges of the stack over a long session, so on a big galaxy re-centre now and then or use EQ mode where your scope supports it.
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 Sculptor Galaxy from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Sculptor Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 29 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 32 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 31 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 34 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 43 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 29 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 24 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 1 h 39 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 29 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 1 h 05 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 28 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 1 h 02 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 1 h 59 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 8 min from Bortle 6
- Sculptor Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 11 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Sculptor Galaxy · All targets for the eQuinox 2