How long to image the NGC 6914 with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 5 h 33 min (4,992 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the NGC 6914. A quick look takes 1 h 23 min; a showpiece 22 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 3 h 10 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. 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 | 44 min662 subs | 2 h 56 min2,648 subs | 12 h10,590 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 45 min680 subs | 3 h 01 min2,720 subs | 12 h10,878 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 48 min714 subs | 3 h 10 min2,856 subs | 13 h11,423 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 53 min797 subs | 3 h 32 min3,186 subs | 14 h12,742 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 1 h 02 min928 subs | 4 h 07 min3,709 subs | 16 h14,834 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 1 h 23 min1,248 subs | 5 h 33 min4,992 subs | 22 h19,966 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 2 h 04 min1,859 subs | 8 h 16 min7,436 subs | 33 h29,744 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 3 h 07 min2,808 subs | 12 h11,232 subs | 50 h44,926 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 5 h 22 min4,832 subs | 21 h19,327 subs | 86 h77,305 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 7 h 13 min of run time. That is more than one night: over 2 nights, about 3 h 36 min each. The eQuinox 2’s battery (rated about 11 h) should cover each night; a power bank still keeps the phone running the app alive. (Bortle 6, solid image; we allow 30% over the integration time.)
- USB-C power bank 20000mAh 5V 2AUnistellar asks for a 5 V 2 A output; PD is not needed.
- 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 eQuinox 2 →
How it frames
The NGC 6914 is 6′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it fills 18% of the frame’s short side.
About the NGC 6914
Blue reflection patches floating on a sea of red hydrogen in Cygnus. Broadband for the blue; dual-band would remove the point.
vdB 131/132 · Reflection nebula in Cygnus · magnitude 9.0 · 6′ · best in Jul, Aug, Sep. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Reflection nebulae are starlight scattered by dust, so they are broadband and blue. A dual-band filter removes almost all of it; do not use one. These are among the faintest structures a smart scope can attempt and the figures run long. A dark sky matters more here than for any other type, and the Moon must be down.
About the Unistellar eQuinox 2
A 114 mm Newtonian with five times the light grasp of a 50 mm refractor. Fixed 4 s subs put it in read-noise territory under dark skies, but the aperture carries it. The published field is 45.6′ × 34.2′, a crop of the sensor.
Fixed 4 s subs in Enhanced Vision; they cannot be changed. No built-in filter. Unistellar sells only a solar filter and says a third-party filter is at your own risk and voids the warranty.
The eQuinox 2 uses fixed 4 s subs, so the only levers you have are the sky you shoot from, the filter, and total time.
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 NGC 6914 from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- NGC 6914 with the ZWO Seestar S50: 6 h 04 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 6 h 38 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the ZWO Seestar S30: 6 h 23 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 7 h 02 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 8 h 48 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 6 h 02 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the DwarfLab Draco: 4 h 59 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 21 h from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the Vaonis Vespera II: 6 h 04 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 14 h from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 5 h 48 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 13 h from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the Unistellar Odyssey: 26 h from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the Celestron Origin: 1 h 36 min from Bortle 6
- NGC 6914 with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 2 h 12 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the NGC 6914 · All targets for the eQuinox 2