How long to image the Western Veil Nebula with the Unistellar Odyssey
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar Odyssey needs about 10 h (9,406 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Western Veil Nebula. A quick look takes 2 h 37 min; a showpiece 42 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 6 h 57 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it is 2.1× wider than the frame.
| Sky | Quick lookTarget obvious, still noisy | SolidClean enough to share | ShowpieceSmooth faint detail, print-worthy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bortle 1Excellent dark site | 1 h 39 min1,488 subs | 6 h 37 min5,950 subs | 26 h23,797 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 1 h 41 min1,514 subs | 6 h 44 min6,056 subs | 27 h24,222 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 1 h 44 min1,565 subs | 6 h 57 min6,257 subs | 28 h25,025 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 1 h 52 min1,686 subs | 7 h 30 min6,743 subs | 30 h26,972 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 2 h 05 min1,879 subs | 8 h 21 min7,514 subs | 33 h30,056 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 2 h 37 min2,352 subs | 10 h9,406 subs | 42 h37,624 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 3 h 37 min3,253 subs | 14 h13,012 subs | 58 h52,045 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 5 h 10 min4,653 subs | 21 h18,609 subs | 83 h74,435 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 8 h 29 min7,637 subs | 34 h30,547 subs | 140+ h122,187 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 14 h of run time. That is more than one night: over 2 nights, about 6 h 48 min each. The Odyssey’s battery is rated at about 5 h, so each night needs an external power bank. (Bortle 6, solid image; we allow 30% over the integration time.)
- USB power bank 20000mAh 5V 2.4AUnistellar says plain 5 V 2.4 A and warns against fast or adaptive chargers.
- 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 Odyssey →
How it frames
The Western Veil Nebula is 70′ × 6′ across. The Odyssey frames 0.75° × 0.56° at 0.93″ per pixel, so it is 2.1× 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 Odyssey has no dual-band option: No filter option; Unistellar says third-party filters cannot be fitted to the Odyssey. 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 Odyssey
Unistellar’s compact 85 mm with autofocus and tiny pixels. Sharp, but the fine sampling costs time on faint extended targets. The Odyssey Pro is the same telescope with an eyepiece added, so these figures apply to both.
Fixed 4 s subs in Enhanced Vision; they cannot be changed. No filter option; Unistellar says third-party filters cannot be fitted to the Odyssey.
The Odyssey 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 Odyssey? 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 eQuinox 2: 2 h 15 min 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 Odyssey