How long to image the Carina Nebula with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 11 min (159 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Carina Nebula. A quick look takes 3 min; a showpiece 42 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 7 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it is 3.5× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 2 min24 subs | 6 min94 subs | 25 min373 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 2 min24 subs | 6 min96 subs | 25 min381 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 2 min25 subs | 7 min99 subs | 26 min396 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 2 min28 subs | 7 min109 subs | 29 min433 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 2 min31 subs | 8 min123 subs | 33 min492 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 3 min40 subs | 11 min159 subs | 42 min635 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 4 min57 subs | 15 min228 subs | 1 h 01 min910 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 6 min84 subs | 22 min334 subs | 1 h 29 min1,335 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 9 min141 subs | 37 min561 subs | 2 h 30 min2,243 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 14 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 Carina Nebula is 120′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it is 3.5× wider than the frame. A mosaic, or choosing the part you want and letting the rest go, is how it gets shot on this scope.
Filters
The Carina Nebula is an emission target, where a dual-band filter would normally cut the time several-fold from a lit sky, but the eQuinox 2 has no dual-band option: 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 figures above are for the No filter position, and a darker sky is the lever that remains.
About the Carina Nebula
Four times the size and brightness of the Orion Nebula, the best emission nebula in the sky. Southern hemisphere only, and easy from anywhere it rises.
NGC 3372, Caldwell 92, Eta Carinae Nebula · Emission nebula in Carina · magnitude 1.0 · 120′ · best in Feb, Mar, Apr. Low or below the horizon from northern Europe; best from the southern US southwards.
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 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 Carina 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
- Carina Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50: 9 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 10 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30: 10 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 11 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 12 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 9 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the DwarfLab Draco: 15 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 41 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera II: 12 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 27 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 12 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 26 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the Unistellar Odyssey: 48 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the Celestron Origin: 5 min from Bortle 6
- Carina Nebula with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 5 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Carina Nebula · All targets for the eQuinox 2