How long to image the Western Veil Nebula with the Unistellar eQuinox 2
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar eQuinox 2 needs about 2 h 15 min (2,028 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Western Veil Nebula. A quick look takes 34 min; a showpiece 9 h 01 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 1 h 17 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it is 2.0× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 18 min270 subs | 1 h 12 min1,078 subs | 4 h 47 min4,310 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 18 min277 subs | 1 h 14 min1,107 subs | 4 h 55 min4,427 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 19 min291 subs | 1 h 17 min1,162 subs | 5 h 10 min4,647 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 22 min324 subs | 1 h 26 min1,296 subs | 5 h 45 min5,182 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 25 min377 subs | 1 h 40 min1,508 subs | 6 h 42 min6,030 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 34 min507 subs | 2 h 15 min2,028 subs | 9 h 01 min8,110 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 50 min755 subs | 3 h 21 min3,019 subs | 13 h12,074 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 1 h 16 min1,140 subs | 5 h 04 min4,557 subs | 20 h18,228 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 2 h 11 min1,960 subs | 8 h 43 min7,838 subs | 35 h31,352 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 2 h 56 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 Western Veil Nebula is 70′ × 6′ across. The eQuinox 2 frames 0.76° × 0.57° at 1.33″ per pixel, so it is 2.0× wider than the frame. A mosaic, or choosing the part you want and letting the rest go, is how it gets shot on this scope.
Filters
The Western Veil Nebula is an emission target, where a dual-band filter would normally cut the time several-fold from a lit sky, but the eQuinox 2 has no dual-band option: 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 figures above are for the No filter position, and a darker sky is the lever that remains.
About the Western Veil Nebula
A thin, bright filament of supernova shock running through the star 52 Cygni. A dual-band filter transforms it; without one it drowns in suburban skyglow.
NGC 6960, Witch’s Broom, Caldwell 34 · Supernova remnant in Cygnus · magnitude 7.0 · 70′ × 6′ · best in Jul, Aug, Sep. Reachable from mid-northern latitudes (UK, northern US, central Europe) and from the south.
Supernova remnants are emission-line objects, strong in both hydrogen-alpha and OIII, and their filaments are thin, so pixel scale matters as much as aperture. A dual-band filter is essential from any lit sky and still helps under a dark one. These are long-integration targets; plan on several sessions and stack across nights.
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 Western Veil Nebula from a eQuinox 2? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Western Veil Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50: 1 h 33 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 1 h 44 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30: 1 h 48 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 1 h 52 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 1 h 55 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 1 h 31 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the DwarfLab Draco: 1 h 13 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 8 h 29 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera II: 2 h 28 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 5 h 32 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 2 h 21 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 5 h 16 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the Unistellar Odyssey: 10 h from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the Celestron Origin: 39 min from Bortle 6
- Western Veil Nebula with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 54 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Western Veil Nebula · All targets for the eQuinox 2