How long to image the Hamburger Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera 3 needs about 2 h 24 min (863 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Hamburger Galaxy. A quick look takes 36 min; a showpiece 9 h 35 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 53 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 17% 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 | 11 min67 subs | 44 min267 subs | 2 h 58 min1,068 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 12 min72 subs | 48 min286 subs | 3 h 10 min1,141 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 13 min80 subs | 53 min320 subs | 3 h 33 min1,279 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 17 min101 subs | 1 h 07 min404 subs | 4 h 29 min1,615 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 22 min135 subs | 1 h 29 min537 subs | 5 h 58 min2,147 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 36 min216 subs | 2 h 24 min863 subs | 9 h 35 min3,451 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 1 h 02 min372 subs | 4 h 07 min1,485 subs | 16 h5,937 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 1 h 42 min613 subs | 6 h 48 min2,450 subs | 27 h9,797 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 3 h 08 min1,127 subs | 13 h4,508 subs | 50 h18,029 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 3 h 07 min of run time. The Vespera 3’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 PD power bank 20000mAh 30WVaonis says an external bank extends sessions; 30 W PD as for the II and Pro.
- 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 Vespera 3 →
How it frames
The Hamburger Galaxy is 15′ × 3.6′ across. The Vespera 3 frames 2.60° × 1.46° at 2.44″ per pixel, so it fills 17% of the frame’s short side.
Longer subs
10 s subs by default; Expert Mode manual targets allow 1 to 30 s. Alt-azimuth only; CovalENS mosaic widens the field to 4.3° × 2.4°. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 s | 53 min320 subs | 1 h 29 min537 subs | 4 h 07 min1,485 subs |
| 20 s | 45 min136 subs | 1 h 21 min244 subs | 3 h 59 min718 subs |
| 30 s | 42 min85 subs | 1 h 19 min158 subs | 3 h 57 min474 subs |
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 Vaonis Vespera 3
The 2026 Vespera: same 50 mm quadruplet class as the II on an 8 MP IMX585, with a 24 MP mosaic mode and 11 hours of battery. Per pixel it behaves like a Seestar S50 Pro without the built-in dual-band filter.
10 s subs by default; Expert Mode manual targets allow 1 to 30 s. Alt-azimuth only; CovalENS mosaic widens the field to 4.3° × 2.4°. Optional clip-on Vaonis filters: dual-band, light-pollution (CLS) and solar. The new optical baffle is not a substitute for a CLS filter.
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 30 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 Vespera 3? 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 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 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 Vespera 3