How long to image the Antennae Galaxies with the DwarfLab DWARF 3
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the DwarfLab DWARF 3 needs about 2 h 54 min (697 subs of 15 s) for a solid image of the Antennae Galaxies. A quick look takes 44 min; a showpiece 12 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 5% 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 | 13 min54 subs | 53 min213 subs | 3 h 33 min851 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 14 min57 subs | 57 min228 subs | 3 h 47 min910 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 16 min64 subs | 1 h 04 min256 subs | 4 h 16 min1,023 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 20 min81 subs | 1 h 21 min324 subs | 5 h 24 min1,296 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 27 min108 subs | 1 h 48 min432 subs | 7 h 12 min1,728 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 44 min175 subs | 2 h 54 min697 subs | 12 h2,788 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 1 h 15 min301 subs | 5 h1,202 subs | 20 h4,808 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 2 h 04 min497 subs | 8 h 16 min1,986 subs | 33 h7,944 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 3 h 49 min915 subs | 15 h3,659 subs | 61 h14,633 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 3 h 46 min of run time. The DWARF 3’s battery (rated about 5 h 30 min) 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 18W18 W PD input and it runs while charging; needs a C-to-C cable for PD.
- 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 DWARF 3 →
How it frames
The Antennae Galaxies is 5′ × 3′ across. The DWARF 3 frames 2.93° × 1.65° at 2.75″ per pixel, so it fills 5% of the frame’s short side.
Longer subs
Auto mode caps subs at 15 s; 30 s and longer need EQ mode, and 60 s is the ceiling on the tele camera. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 s | 1 h 04 min256 subs | 1 h 48 min432 subs | 5 h1,202 subs |
| 30 s | 1 h121 subs | 1 h 44 min209 subs | 4 h 57 min594 subs |
| 60 s | 58 min59 subs | 1 h 42 min103 subs | 4 h 55 min295 subs |
Leave the dual-band filter out for the Antennae Galaxies. 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 10 times slower.
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 DwarfLab DWARF 3
Small pixels on a 35 mm f/4.3 lens give a sharper image than its aperture suggests, and EQ mode with 60 s subs makes it the read-noise winner in dark skies.
Auto mode caps subs at 15 s; 30 s and longer need EQ mode, and 60 s is the ceiling on the tele camera. Three built-in filters: VIS, Astro (430 to 690 nm) and dual-band Hα 656 nm / OIII 501 nm.
Longer subs matter most under dark skies, where read noise rather than skyglow sets the floor. From a city the difference between 15 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 Antennae Galaxies from a DWARF 3? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Antennae Galaxies with the ZWO Seestar S50: 2 h from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 2 h 11 min from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the ZWO Seestar S30: 2 h 06 min from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 2 h 19 min from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 1 h 59 min from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the DwarfLab Draco: 1 h 38 min from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 6 h 48 min from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the Vaonis Vespera II: 2 h from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 4 h 28 min from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 1 h 54 min from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 4 h 15 min from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 1 h 48 min from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the Unistellar Odyssey: 8 h 16 min from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the Celestron Origin: 32 min from Bortle 6
- Antennae Galaxies with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 44 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Antennae Galaxies · All targets for the DWARF 3