How long should I image the Antennae Galaxies with the Vespera 3 from a Bortle 6 sky?

About 1 h 54 min of total integration for a solid image, or 7 h 38 min for a showpiece. A quick look takes 29 min.

How many subs is that on the Vespera 3?

At the default 10 s sub length, 687 subs for a solid image from Bortle 6 and 275 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 Vaonis Vespera 3

From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera 3 needs about 1 h 54 min (687 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Antennae Galaxies. A quick look takes 29 min; a showpiece 7 h 38 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 46 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 6% of the frame’s short side.

Antennae Galaxies with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 10 s subs.
Sky	Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy	SolidClean enough to share	ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy
Bortle 1Excellent dark site	10 min59 subs	39 min235 subs	2 h 36 min939 subs
Bortle 2Typical dark site	10 min63 subs	41 min249 subs	2 h 46 min995 subs
Bortle 3Rural	11 min69 subs	46 min275 subs	3 h 03 min1,100 subs
Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition	14 min85 subs	56 min339 subs	3 h 46 min1,354 subs
Bortle 5Suburban	18 min110 subs	1 h 13 min440 subs	4 h 53 min1,757 subs
Bortle 6Bright suburban	29 min172 subs	1 h 54 min687 subs	7 h 38 min2,746 subs
Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition	48 min290 subs	3 h 13 min1,158 subs	13 h4,629 subs
Bortle 8City	1 h 19 min473 subs	5 h 15 min1,889 subs	21 h7,555 subs
Bortle 9Inner city	2 h 24 min863 subs	9 h 35 min3,449 subs	38 h13,793 subs

Adjust in the calculator

Power and kit for this session

Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 2 h 29 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.
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How it frames

The Antennae Galaxies is 5′ × 3′ across. The Vespera 3 frames 2.60° × 1.46° at 2.44″ per pixel, so it fills 6% 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	46 min275 subs	1 h 13 min440 subs	3 h 13 min1,158 subs
20 s	40 min119 subs	1 h 07 min202 subs	3 h 07 min561 subs
30 s	38 min76 subs	1 h 05 min130 subs	3 h 05 min370 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 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.

Where to buy the Vespera 3Vaonis store Direct Amazon UK Amazon USThe Vaonis 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 Vespera 3? Did the solid figure match?Anonymous, one tap. It is how the model gets calibrated.

Have an image of the Antennae Galaxies from a Vespera 3? 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 Vespera 3