How long to image the Fireworks Galaxy with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 4 h 49 min (4,340 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Fireworks Galaxy. A quick look takes 1 h 12 min; a showpiece 19 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 2 h 45 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 32% 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 | 38 min572 subs | 2 h 32 min2,287 subs | 10 h9,145 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 39 min588 subs | 2 h 37 min2,350 subs | 10 h9,397 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 41 min618 subs | 2 h 45 min2,469 subs | 11 h9,874 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 46 min690 subs | 3 h 04 min2,758 subs | 12 h11,030 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 54 min804 subs | 3 h 34 min3,216 subs | 14 h12,863 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 1 h 12 min1,085 subs | 4 h 49 min4,340 subs | 19 h17,358 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 1 h 48 min1,621 subs | 7 h 12 min6,481 subs | 29 h25,924 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 2 h 43 min2,452 subs | 11 h9,806 subs | 44 h39,224 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 4 h 42 min4,225 subs | 19 h16,898 subs | 75 h67,589 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 6 h 16 min of run time. The eQuinox 2’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 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 Fireworks Galaxy is 11′ × 10′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it fills 32% of the frame’s short side.
About the Fireworks Galaxy
A face-on spiral famous for its supernovae, dimmed by Milky Way dust. Faint arms; the open cluster NGC 6939 sits nearby.
NGC 6946, Caldwell 12 · Galaxy in Cygnus · magnitude 9.6 · 11′ × 10′ · best in Jul, Aug, Sep. 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 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 Fireworks Galaxy from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Fireworks Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50: 5 h 15 min from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 5 h 45 min from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30: 5 h 32 min from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 6 h 06 min from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 7 h 37 min from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 5 h 14 min from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the DwarfLab Draco: 4 h 19 min from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 18 h from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera II: 5 h 15 min from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 12 h from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 5 h 01 min from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 11 h from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the Unistellar Odyssey: 22 h from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the Celestron Origin: 1 h 23 min from Bortle 6
- Fireworks Galaxy with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 1 h 54 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Fireworks Galaxy · All targets for the eQuinox 2