How long to image the Hamburger Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro needs about 2 h 55 min (1,048 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Hamburger Galaxy. A quick look takes 44 min; a showpiece 12 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 1 h 07 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 11% 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 | 14 min86 subs | 57 min342 subs | 3 h 48 min1,367 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 15 min91 subs | 1 h 01 min364 subs | 4 h 02 min1,454 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 17 min102 subs | 1 h 07 min405 subs | 4 h 30 min1,618 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 21 min126 subs | 1 h 24 min504 subs | 5 h 36 min2,016 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 28 min166 subs | 1 h 50 min662 subs | 7 h 21 min2,645 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 44 min262 subs | 2 h 55 min1,048 subs | 12 h4,191 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 1 h 14 min446 subs | 4 h 57 min1,784 subs | 20 h7,136 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 2 h 02 min732 subs | 8 h 08 min2,928 subs | 33 h11,709 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 3 h 44 min1,342 subs | 15 h5,366 subs | 60 h21,461 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 3 h 47 min of run time. The Seestar S30 Pro’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-C power bank 10000mAh 5V 3A5 V 3 A input and it runs while charging.
- Seestar S30 Pro dew shieldActive anti-dew is built in; a shield adds margin. The S30 Pro front differs from the S30, so check the listing.
- 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 Seestar S30 Pro →
How it frames
The Hamburger Galaxy is 15′ × 3.6′ across. The Seestar S30 Pro frames 3.99° × 2.24° at 3.74″ per pixel, so it fills 11% of the frame’s short side.
Longer subs
10, 20 and 30 s in Alt-Az; 60 s only in EQ mode, which needs the TH10 head. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 1 h 07 min405 subs | 1 h 50 min662 subs | 4 h 57 min1,784 subs |
| 20 s | 56 min168 subs | 1 h 39 min297 subs | 4 h 46 min858 subs |
| 30 s | 52 min105 subs | 1 h 35 min190 subs | 4 h 42 min565 subs |
| 60 s | 48 min49 subs | 1 h 31 min92 subs | 4 h 38 min279 subs |
Leave the dual-band filter out for the Hamburger Galaxy. It is a galaxy, and it shines right across the spectrum. A dual-band filter keeps two emission lines and throws the rest away, so most of the light you came for is being stopped along with the sky. From a Bortle 6 sky it would be roughly 13 times slower.
About the Hamburger Galaxy
The third member of the Leo Triplet, an edge-on with a thick dust lane and a faint tidal tail.
NGC 3628 · Galaxy in Leo · magnitude 9.5 · 15′ × 3.6′ · best in Feb, Mar, Apr. 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 ZWO Seestar S30 Pro
The S30 optics upgraded to a quadruplet in front of an 8 MP IMX585. Same speed per pixel as the S30, four times the pixels, so you can crop hard.
10, 20 and 30 s in Alt-Az; 60 s only in EQ mode, which needs the TH10 head. Built-in UV/IR-cut, dual-band (OIII 30 nm / Hα 20 nm) and dark filters on the telephoto camera.
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 60 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 Hamburger Galaxy from a Seestar S30 Pro? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Hamburger Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 2 h 31 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 2 h 45 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 2 h 38 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 3 h 38 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 2 h 30 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 2 h 04 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 8 h 37 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 2 h 31 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 5 h 38 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 2 h 24 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 5 h 22 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 2 h 17 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 11 h from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 40 min from Bortle 6
- Hamburger Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 55 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Hamburger Galaxy · All targets for the Seestar S30 Pro