How long to image the Hamburger Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the ZWO Seestar S30 needs about 2 h 38 min (950 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Hamburger Galaxy. A quick look takes 40 min; a showpiece 11 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 1 h 04 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 21% 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 min83 subs | 55 min330 subs | 3 h 40 min1,318 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 15 min88 subs | 58 min349 subs | 3 h 52 min1,394 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 16 min97 subs | 1 h 04 min385 subs | 4 h 16 min1,538 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 20 min118 subs | 1 h 19 min472 subs | 5 h 15 min1,888 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 25 min153 subs | 1 h 42 min611 subs | 6 h 47 min2,441 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 40 min238 subs | 2 h 38 min950 subs | 11 h3,800 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 1 h 07 min400 subs | 4 h 26 min1,597 subs | 18 h6,388 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 1 h 48 min651 subs | 7 h 14 min2,602 subs | 29 h10,407 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 3 h 18 min1,187 subs | 13 h4,745 subs | 53 h18,978 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 3 h 26 min of run time. The Seestar S30’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.)
- USB-C power bank 10000mAh 5V 3A6,000 mAh inside; a 10,000 mAh 5 V 3 A bank roughly doubles a session.
- Seestar S30 dew shieldHeater is built in; a cheap shield reduces dew and stray light.
- red LED head torchRed light keeps your night vision; white light costs you twenty minutes of dark adaptation every time.
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 Seestar S30 →
How it frames
The Hamburger Galaxy is 15′ × 3.6′ across. The Seestar S30 frames 2.13° × 1.20° at 3.99″ per pixel, so it fills 21% 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 04 min385 subs | 1 h 42 min611 subs | 4 h 26 min1,597 subs |
| 20 s | 51 min155 subs | 1 h 29 min268 subs | 4 h 13 min761 subs |
| 30 s | 47 min95 subs | 1 h 25 min170 subs | 4 h 09 min499 subs |
| 60 s | 43 min43 subs | 1 h 21 min81 subs | 4 h 05 min246 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 14 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
Wider and lighter than the S50 with the same 2.9 µm pixels, so its per-pixel speed on extended targets is close despite the smaller aperture. Ideal for big nebulae.
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.
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? 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 Pro: 2 h 55 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