Comparison between a cooperative B.A.T. lucky imaging result and "regular" CDK 20 image. The CDK 20 data was acquired at the Dr. Karl Remeis Observatory in Bamberg (Germany) by Big Amateur Telescope (B.A.T.) Discord member weber. The lucky imaging data was acquired using 10" Newtonians by B.A.T. members @Astrobiscuit and @Ulrik von Zotmann, the C 14 data was acquired by myself from Schwentinental (Germany). The difference in resolution is quite amazing. While the regular CDK 20 image is seeing limited and has an average FWHM value of 2.2", the final B.A.T. lucky imaging result is less affected by seeing leading to an average FWHM = 1.3".

M 82 is currently a Big Amateur Telescope (B.A.T.) high-resolution target and we still need more lucky imaging contributions to further mitigate the noise in the fainter parts of the galaxy.

The Big Amateur Telescope (B.A.T.), initiated by Astrobiscuit, is a collaboration of amateur astronomers, who share their data in order to create deep, high-resolution images of Deep Sky objects and time-lapse animations of variable nebulae.

If you want to contribute data to the B.A.T. or help processing the data, follow this link:

discord.gg/WK8qmrqcpq

C 14 setup and lucky imaging:

23. - 25.03.2022

ZWO ASI 1600 MM Pro @ -15°C (Gain=450)
+ C14 & .7 reducer @ 2741 mm (f/7.7)
+ Baader UV/IR cut filter
on CGE-Pro mount

no autoguiding

light frames:
86000 x 250 ms frames (L)

dark frames:
1000 x 250 ms

Data acquisition with Firecapture
I captured batches of SER movies, each containing 1000 images. In between the movies, I applied a manual dither to mitigate fixed pattern noise in the final stack. Total amount of data was ~ 1.4 TB.

C 14 lucky imaging post processing:

Autostakkert3!
Stacked 50% of the best subs of each SER movie and futher rejected stacks affected by short periods of bad seeing. For the final stack 23500 of the 86000 were used.

FWHM values of B.A.T. lucky imaging data:

Ulrik von Zotmann: 10" Newtonian 6600 x 0.5 s - FWHM = 1.9"
Astrobiscuit: 10" Newtonian (Big Bertha) 2500 x 0.5 s - FWHM = 1.9"
MrCrazyPhysicist: C 14 Edge HD 23500 x 250 ms - FWHM = 1.2"

B.A.T. lucky imaging and CDK 20 regular imaging post processing:

PixInsight

Stacking of LI BAT data in PixelMath:
0.75 * MrCrazyPhysicist + 0.125 * Astrobiscuit + 0.125 * Zotmann

dynamic crop, dynamic background extraction, deconvolution, linear fit of CDK 20 to BAT LI data, masked stretch, create luminance mask from CDK 20 result, HDRMT, LocalHistogramEqualization, unsharp masking, invert luminance mask, darken the sky background with curves transformations

Starless processing:
Star removal by StarNet2

Topaz Denoise AI:
Remove noise from starless image:
Low Light Mode On
Sharpen: 0
Remove Noise: 20

Finally, add stars to starless image using Pixelmath

AnimatedGIF created with PIPP