How Many Hours Do You Shoot One Target in One Evening

Hi Meg,

Usually if the weather allows it, in the Summer bewteen 5 to 6h. In the Winter around 8-9h. If I'm doing monochrome, I'll do the same per filter.
But this is in my best nights and if the weather is my friend. If don't, about 3h to 4h in the Summer and 5h to 6h in the Winter. And there are days that I do 1h to 2h. But my record was 6h45min this current Summer and I did about 9h straight last Winter.

Regards,

Cesar

Most of my images are taken over multiple nights…. Usually I will image a target from 45° altitude until 45° altitude. In winter, for a target at -26° Dec, that's about 7hrs, in summer, perhaps shorter depending on the length of astronomical darkness.

I RARELY spend less than 1 full night on a target, my average integration time on Astrobin is about 8.7hrs, and recently, my images have been heading towards 14~30hrs. 

I will almost always have 1 or 2 images on the go - largely because I will have targets that I can focus on during moonlit nights (narrowband targets, or bright star clusters etc) and on moonless nights, I can focus on my primary project (regardless of if its narrowband or broadband light…)

Because of my restricted view of the sky (trees) and the fact that I would rather poke myself in the eye with a sharp stick than go portable. The most I can get is 4 hours. I'm shooting narrowband under Bortle 8 so as others have mentioned, altitude isn't a huge factor. If you do have sky access from horizon to horizon, I see no reason not to max out the available time as everything is automated anyway. Super long integrations aren't the badge of endurance that it used to be but it does pay off and is so much worth doing.

I shoot the entire duration of darkness and a half hour on either side on a single target. I try to time them so I get more time on zenith and to the west where my skies are darker, but I don't even get that picky. They are fair game to me as long as they aren't too low to the horizon. I generally shoot 15-30 hours per target, so one filter per night for several nights. The only time I shoot multiple targets in a night is for remarkable conjunctions or comets. I should get more analytical and maximize target time at zenith, but I run three rigs, so just getting them all on a target and running is my current threshold for success.

Many factors determine how much time one can use on a specific object in an evening.  The maximum amount of time for a target in an evening is determined by its Declination and your location.  I think for anyone, it's hard to spend more than 8 hr on a target in an evening.  We typically want to observe a target when it's sufficiently high on the sky (above 30 deg, or 40 deg, depending on target and person).  This sets the 8 hr maximum length.  When you have multiple projects and multiple targets, you may want to sequence them and optimize the imaging condition to be even higher above (50 deg, for example).  This leads to even better image quality, but this prevents very long integration on a single object within a night.

So there are many considerations.  I never dare to think that I can complete an object in a night.  My imaging for any target is always split into multiple nights in order to optimize the imaging conditions.

In terms of total integration, you will need experience. How much time is needed strongly depends on your imaging condition and your personal desire on how deep to go.  For the imaging condition part, there might be formulas.  But it's really a question of how deep you want to go, and no one can answer this for you.  Even I am often uncertain about how much time I should spend on an object.  My way of finding out is to first get some moderately deep images (like a total of 4 hr of integration in one filter in just one night), calibrate and stack them and see if they are deep enough.  Then I decide if I want to add more integration (and how much more).

Hope this is helpful.

Last night was forecast clear 8 till 4

So one hour