How long should I image the Antennae Galaxies with the Origin Mark II from a Bortle 6 sky?

About 44 min of total integration for a solid image, or 2 h 54 min for a showpiece. A quick look takes 11 min.

How many subs is that on the Origin Mark II?

At the default 10 s sub length, 262 subs for a solid image from Bortle 6 and 87 from Bortle 3.

Does a dual-band filter help on the Antennae Galaxies?

No. The Antennae Galaxies is a broadband target and a dual-band filter blocks most of its light. Shoot without a filter.

How long to image the Antennae Galaxies with the Celestron Origin Mark II

From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Celestron Origin Mark II needs about 44 min (262 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Antennae Galaxies. A quick look takes 11 min; a showpiece 2 h 54 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 14 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.

Antennae Galaxies with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 10 s subs.
Sky	Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy	SolidClean enough to share	ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy
Bortle 1Excellent dark site	3 min18 subs	12 min70 subs	46 min279 subs
Bortle 2Typical dark site	3 min19 subs	13 min76 subs	50 min302 subs
Bortle 3Rural	4 min22 subs	14 min87 subs	58 min347 subs
Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition	5 min29 subs	19 min114 subs	1 h 16 min455 subs
Bortle 5Suburban	7 min40 subs	26 min157 subs	1 h 44 min627 subs
Bortle 6Bright suburban	11 min66 subs	44 min262 subs	2 h 54 min1,047 subs
Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition	19 min116 subs	1 h 17 min462 subs	5 h 08 min1,848 subs
Bortle 8City	32 min194 subs	2 h 09 min774 subs	8 h 35 min3,093 subs
Bortle 9Inner city	1 h360 subs	3 h 59 min1,437 subs	16 h5,746 subs

Adjust in the calculator

Power and kit for this session

Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 57 min of run time. The Origin Mark II’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.)

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How it frames

The Antennae Galaxies is 5′ × 3′ across. The Origin Mark II frames 1.32° × 0.75° at 1.23″ per pixel, so it fills 11% of the frame’s short side.

Longer subs

10 s auto subs (15 s with the Nebula Filter); manual 1 to 30 s on the alt-az mount, longer only with the EQ wedge, and 60 s and up needs the StarSense Autoguider too. Celestron warns the f/2.2 optics saturate quickly without the filter. Time for a solid image by sub length:

Sub length	Bortle 3	Bortle 5	Bortle 7
10 s	14 min87 subs	26 min157 subs	1 h 17 min462 subs
15 s	14 min57 subs	26 min104 subs	1 h 17 min307 subs
30 s	15 min30 subs	26 min52 subs	1 h 16 min153 subs

About the Antennae Galaxies

Two colliding galaxies with long tidal tails. The cores are reachable; the antennae themselves are a dark-sky, long-integration task.

NGC 4038 and NGC 4039, Caldwell 60/61 · Galaxy in Corvus · magnitude 10.3 · 5′ × 3′ · best in Mar, Apr, May. 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 Celestron Origin Mark II

The Origin Mark II (late 2025): the same 6-inch f/2.2 RASA with an 8 MP IMX678 in place of the original 6 MP IMX178. Smaller pixels for finer detail, a quieter sensor, and still the fastest system here by a wide margin.

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.

Where to buy the Origin Mark IICelestron store Direct Amazon UK Amazon USThe Celestron store link is a plain link; the others are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you.

Imaged the Antennae Galaxies with your Origin Mark II? Did the solid figure match?Anonymous, one tap. It is how the model gets calibrated.

Have an image of the Antennae Galaxies from a Origin Mark II? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.

Same target, other telescopes

All telescopes for the Antennae Galaxies · All targets for the Origin Mark II