How long to image the Eastern Veil Nebula with the DwarfLab Draco
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the DwarfLab Draco needs about 1 h 02 min (125 subs of 30 s with the built-in dual-narrowband (Hα + OIII) filter) for a solid image of the Eastern Veil Nebula. A quick look takes 16 min; a showpiece 4 h 08 min. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 42 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it fills 80% 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 | 10 min21 subs | 40 min81 subs | 2 h 42 min324 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 10 min21 subs | 41 min83 subs | 2 h 45 min330 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 11 min22 subs | 42 min85 subs | 2 h 50 min340 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 11 min23 subs | 45 min91 subs | 3 h 02 min364 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 13 min26 subs | 50 min101 subs | 3 h 21 min403 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 16 min32 subs | 1 h 02 min125 subs | 4 h 08 min497 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 21 min43 subs | 1 h 25 min170 subs | 5 h 38 min677 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 30 min60 subs | 1 h 59 min239 subs | 7 h 58 min956 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 48 min97 subs | 3 h 14 min388 subs | 13 h1,552 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 1 h 21 min of run time. The Draco’s battery (rated about 5 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 PD power bank 20000mAhRated 5 h on its 10,000 mAh battery. DwarfLab has not published the charging input, so check PD support before relying on it mid-session.
- 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 Draco →
How it frames
The Eastern Veil Nebula is 60′ × 8′ across. The Draco frames 1.66° × 1.24° at 1.46″ per pixel, so it fills 80% of the frame’s short side.
Longer subs
Auto Mode picks the exposure; Pro Mode allows up to 300 s, held by built-in guiding and field derotation. The 30 s default here is our assumption. Time for a solid image by sub length:
| Sub length | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30 s | 42 min85 subs | 50 min101 subs | 1 h 25 min170 subs |
| 60 s | 31 min32 subs | 39 min40 subs | 1 h 14 min74 subs |
| 120 s | 1 h30 subs | 1 h30 subs | 1 h 08 min35 subs |
| 300 s | 2 h 30 min30 subs | 2 h 30 min30 subs | 2 h 30 min30 subs |
With and without the dual-band filter
| Filter | Bortle 3 | Bortle 5 | Bortle 7 |
|---|---|---|---|
| No filter | 38 min76 subs | 1 h 03 min127 subs | 2 h 55 min351 subs |
| dual-narrowband (Hα + OIII) | 42 min85 subs | 50 min101 subs | 1 h 25 min170 subs |
About the Eastern Veil Nebula
The brighter, more detailed arc of the Veil. Red hydrogen and teal oxygen filaments interleave; dual-band captures both.
NGC 6992, NGC 6995, Caldwell 33 · Supernova remnant in Cygnus · magnitude 7.0 · 60′ × 8′ · 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 DwarfLab Draco
DwarfLab’s big scope: 90 mm of folded f/3.8 optics, the most aperture of any Seestar or DWARF, a narrow 13 nm dual-band filter and 300 s subs with built-in guiding. A small-target scope; big nebulae need its mosaic mode.
Auto Mode picks the exposure; Pro Mode allows up to 300 s, held by built-in guiding and field derotation. The 30 s default here is our assumption. Built-in Hα + OIII dual-narrowband filter, 13 nm per line; the SHO Edition adds an SII option.
Longer subs matter most under dark skies, where read noise rather than skyglow sets the floor. From a city the difference between 30 s and 300 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.
Have an image of the Eastern Veil Nebula from a Draco? Email it with your total time and sky to [email protected] and it goes here, credited.
Same target, other telescopes
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50: 1 h 18 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S50 Pro: 1 h 28 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30: 1 h 31 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the ZWO Seestar S30 Pro: 1 h 35 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF 3: 1 h 37 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF mini: 1 h 17 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the DwarfLab DWARF II: 7 h 05 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera II: 2 h 04 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro: 4 h 38 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera 3: 1 h 58 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the Vaonis Vespera Pro 2: 4 h 25 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the Unistellar eQuinox 2: 1 h 53 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the Unistellar Odyssey: 8 h 43 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the Celestron Origin: 33 min from Bortle 6
- Eastern Veil Nebula with the Celestron Origin Mark II: 45 min from Bortle 6
All telescopes for the Eastern Veil Nebula · All targets for the Draco