How long to image the Eastern Veil Nebula with the Unistellar Odyssey
From a Bortle 6 suburban sky, the Unistellar Odyssey needs about 8 h 43 min (7,852 subs of 4 s) for a solid image of the Eastern Veil Nebula. A quick look takes 2 h 11 min; a showpiece 35 h. Under a Bortle 3 rural sky the solid figure drops to 5 h 49 min. At Bortle 6 the limit is a mix of skyglow and read noise. In this scope's field it is 1.8× 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 23 min1,245 subs | 5 h 32 min4,977 subs | 22 h19,905 subs |
| Bortle 2Typical dark site | 1 h 24 min1,267 subs | 5 h 38 min5,065 subs | 23 h20,258 subs |
| Bortle 3Rural | 1 h 27 min1,308 subs | 5 h 49 min5,232 subs | 23 h20,927 subs |
| Bortle 4Rural / suburban transition | 1 h 34 min1,410 subs | 6 h 16 min5,637 subs | 25 h22,545 subs |
| Bortle 5Suburban | 1 h 45 min1,570 subs | 6 h 59 min6,278 subs | 28 h25,111 subs |
| Bortle 6Bright suburban | 2 h 11 min1,963 subs | 8 h 43 min7,852 subs | 35 h31,406 subs |
| Bortle 7Suburban / urban transition | 3 h 01 min2,713 subs | 12 h10,851 subs | 48 h43,401 subs |
| Bortle 8City | 4 h 18 min3,877 subs | 17 h15,506 subs | 69 h62,024 subs |
| Bortle 9Inner city | 7 h 04 min6,359 subs | 28 h25,436 subs | 110+ h101,742 subs |
Power and kit for this session
Allowing for slewing, focusing and rejected subs, that is about 11 h of run time. That is more than one night: over 2 nights, about 5 h 40 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.
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Everything that fits the Odyssey →
How it frames
The Eastern Veil Nebula is 60′ × 8′ across. The Odyssey frames 0.75° × 0.56° at 0.93″ per pixel, so it is 1.8× 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 Eastern 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 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 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 Eastern 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
- 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 Draco: 1 h 02 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 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 Odyssey