Big Amateur Telescope

The Big Amateur Telescope or the BAT for short is an online collaborative project organised by astrophotography youtuber Astrobicuit. The goal of this project is to produce high detail astrophotography images that can be compared to images taken by professional telescopes like Hubble space telescope or Kit Peak telescopes by creating a big community of amateur astrophotographers who can focus on taking thousands of images of the same target and gather as much data as possible. One of the tools they are using to increase the resolution of their telescopes is a technique known as lucky imaging. The BAT members are also attempting to make timelapse videos of a dynamic group of deep space objects known as variable nebula. The project is free to join.

Community

The project is run by a team of international volunteers from the astrobiscuit discord server. Here members can get hands on help collimating their scopes and help each other master the best techniques for capturing each of the deep space targets. Every Tuesday evening at 8pm BST there is a voice chat meeting where astrobiscuit and the members discuss new targets, workflows, equipment and techniques.