How long should I image the Whale Galaxy with the Origin from a Bortle 6 sky?

About 14 min of total integration for a solid image, or 58 min for a showpiece. A quick look takes 4 min.

How many subs is that on the Origin?

At the default 10 s sub length, 87 subs for a solid image from Bortle 6 and 32 from Bortle 3.

Does a dual-band filter help on the Whale Galaxy?

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

How long to image the Whale Galaxy with the Celestron Origin

From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Celestron Origin needs about 14 min (87 subs of 10 s) for a solid image of the Whale Galaxy. A quick look takes 4 min; a showpiece 58 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 5 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 30% of the frame’s short side.

Whale Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 10 s subs.
Sky	Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy	SolidClean enough to share	ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy
Bortle 1Excellent dark site	2 min10 subs	5 min30 subs	17 min104 subs
Bortle 2Typical dark site	2 min10 subs	5 min30 subs	19 min112 subs
Bortle 3Rural	2 min10 subs	5 min32 subs	21 min126 subs
Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition	2 min10 subs	7 min40 subs	27 min160 subs
Bortle 5Suburban	2 min14 subs	9 min54 subs	36 min214 subs
Bortle 6Bright suburban	4 min22 subs	14 min87 subs	58 min347 subs
Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition	6 min38 subs	25 min151 subs	1 h 40 min601 subs
Bortle 8City	10 min63 subs	41 min249 subs	2 h 46 min995 subs
Bortle 9Inner city	19 min115 subs	1 h 16 min459 subs	5 h 06 min1,836 subs

Adjust in the calculator

Power and kit for this session

Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 19 min of run time. The Origin’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 Whale Galaxy is 15.5′ × 2.7′ across. The Origin frames 1.27° × 0.85° at 1.48″ per pixel, so it fills 30% 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. Time for a solid image by sub length:

Sub length	Bortle 3	Bortle 5	Bortle 7
10 s	5 min32 subs	9 min54 subs	25 min151 subs
15 s	8 min30 subs	9 min35 subs	25 min99 subs
30 s	15 min30 subs	15 min30 subs	24 min49 subs

About the Whale Galaxy

A distorted edge-on galaxy with a small companion on its back, and the Hockey Stick (NGC 4656) in the same wide field.

NGC 4631, Caldwell 32 · Galaxy in Canes Venatici · magnitude 9.2 · 15.5′ × 2.7′ · 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

The first-generation Origin: a 6-inch f/2.2 RASA in a smart package and the fastest system here by a wide margin. Superseded by the Mark II in late 2025 and no longer sold new; Celestron offers a camera upgrade to the Mark II sensor.

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. Filter drawer takes 1.25-inch or 2-inch filters, including dual-band; Celestron sells an optional Nebula 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.

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Imaged the Whale Galaxy with your Origin? Did the solid figure match?Anonymous, one tap. It is how the model gets calibrated.

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

Same target, other telescopes

All telescopes for the Whale Galaxy · All targets for the Origin