How long to image the Needle Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Vaonis Vespera 3 needs about 1 h 03 min (378 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Needle Galaxy. A quick look takes 16 min; a showpiece 4 h 12 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 25 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 18% 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 | 5 min32 subs | 21 min127 subs | 1 h 24 min505 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 6 min34 subs | 22 min134 subs | 1 h 29 min536 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 6 min38 subs | 25 min149 subs | 1 h 39 min594 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 8 min46 subs | 31 min184 subs | 2 h 03 min736 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 10 min61 subs | 40 min241 subs | 2 h 40 min961 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 16 min95 subs | 1 h 03 min378 subs | 4 h 12 min1,511 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 27 min161 subs | 1 h 47 min641 subs | 7 h 07 min2,561 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 44 min262 subs | 2 h 55 min1,048 subs | 12 h4,190 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 1 h 20 min480 subs | 5 h 19 min1,917 subs | 21 h7,666 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 22 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 Needle Galaxy is 16′ × 2′ across. The Vespera 3 frames 2.60° × 1.46° at 2.44″ per pixel, so it fills 18% 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 | 25 min149 subs | 40 min241 subs | 1 h 47 min641 subs |
| 20 s | 21 min64 subs | 37 min110 subs | 1 h 43 min310 subs |
| 30 s | 20 min41 subs | 35 min71 subs | 1 h 42 min205 subs |
About the Needle Galaxy
The finest edge-on spiral in the northern sky, a thin needle with a central bulge and dust lane.
NGC 4565, Caldwell 38 · Galaxy in Coma Berenices · magnitude 9.6 · 16′ × 2′ · 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.
Have an image of the Needle 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
- Needle Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 1 h 06 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 1 h 12 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 1 h 09 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 1 h 16 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 1 h 36 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 1 h 06 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 54 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 3 h 45 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 1 h 06 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 2 h 27 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 2 h 21 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 1 h from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 4 h 35 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 17 min from Bortle 6
- Needle Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 24 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Needle Galaxy · All targets for the Vespera 3