How long to image the Carina Nebula with the Unistellar Odyssey
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar Odyssey needs about 48 min (718 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Carina Nebula. A quick look takes 12 min; a showpiece 3 h 11 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 33 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it is 3.6× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 8 min120 subs | 32 min479 subs | 2 h 08 min1,916 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 8 min122 subs | 32 min487 subs | 2 h 10 min1,945 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 8 min126 subs | 33 min501 subs | 2 h 13 min2,001 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 9 min134 subs | 36 min534 subs | 2 h 22 min2,135 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 10 min147 subs | 39 min588 subs | 2 h 37 min2,349 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 12 min180 subs | 48 min718 subs | 3 h 11 min2,872 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 16 min242 subs | 1 h 04 min968 subs | 4 h 18 min3,870 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 23 min339 subs | 1 h 30 min1,355 subs | 6 h 01 min5,419 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 36 min546 subs | 2 h 25 min2,181 subs | 9 h 41 min8,723 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 02 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.)
- 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.
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Everything that fits the Odyssey →
How it frames
The Carina Nebula is 120′ across. The Odyssey frames 0.75° × 0.56° at 0.93″ per pixel, so it is 3.6× 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 Odyssey has no dual-band option: No filter option; Unistellar says third-party filters cannot be fitted to the Odyssey. 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 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 Carina Nebula from a Odyssey? 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 eQuinox 2: 11 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 Odyssey