How long to image the Antennae Galaxies with the DwarfLab DWARF mini
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the DwarfLab DWARF mini needs about 1 h 59 min (477 subs of 15 s) for a solid image of the Antennae Galaxies. A quick look takes 30 min; a showpiece 7 h 57 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 48 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 7% 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 | 10 min41 subs | 41 min164 subs | 2 h 43 min654 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 11 min44 subs | 43 min173 subs | 2 h 53 min692 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 12 min48 subs | 48 min192 subs | 3 h 11 min765 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 15 min59 subs | 59 min236 subs | 3 h 55 min942 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 19 min77 subs | 1 h 16 min306 subs | 5 h 05 min1,221 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 30 min120 subs | 1 h 59 min477 subs | 7 h 57 min1,908 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 50 min201 subs | 3 h 21 min804 subs | 13 h3,215 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 1 h 22 min328 subs | 5 h 28 min1,312 subs | 22 h5,246 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 2 h 30 min599 subs | 9 h 58 min2,394 subs | 40 h9,576 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 2 h 35 min of run time. The DWARF mini’s battery (rated about 3 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 10000mAh 20W7,000 mAh inside, about four hours; a PD bank extends the night.
- 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 mini →
How it frames
The Antennae Galaxies is 5′ × 3′ across. The DWARF mini frames 2.13° × 1.20° at 3.99″ per pixel, so it fills 7% of the frame’s short side.
Longer subs
Auto mode caps subs at 15 s; 30 s and longer need EQ mode, and 90 s is the ceiling. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15 s | 48 min192 subs | 1 h 16 min306 subs | 3 h 21 min804 subs |
| 30 s | 41 min83 subs | 1 h 10 min140 subs | 3 h 15 min390 subs |
| 60 s | 38 min39 subs | 1 h 07 min67 subs | 3 h 11 min192 subs |
| 90 s | 45 min30 subs | 1 h 06 min44 subs | 3 h 10 min127 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 12 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 mini
DwarfLab’s answer to the Seestar S30: same sensor and focal length, big pixels, dual-band filter built in, and 90 s subs in EQ mode. Sensitivity over megapixels.
Auto mode caps subs at 15 s; 30 s and longer need EQ mode, and 90 s is the ceiling. Built-in Astro (430 to 690 nm), dark-frame and dual-band Hα / OIII filters; no plain VIS filter on the tele camera.
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 90 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 mini? 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 3: 2 h 54 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 mini