A 101h imaging of M101 with a small telescope

This image is the result of a 2 year scientific project between professional and amateur astronomers (PRO-AM). While a lot of time and effort is spent by amateur astronomers to obtain visually appealing images of astronomical objects, only few data is taken in such a way that can be used for real science. In this work we present the current limits of amateur technology for doing low surface brightness science when a proper observation strategy and data reduction is carried out. We have observed the M101 galaxy (in luminance) for a total time of 101 hours using an amateur telescope of 8.5 cm aperture. After a professional data reduction, we reach a surface brightness level around 28 mag/arcsec² over a field of view of 1.2 deg². This result shows that current amateur astronomy still can compete in depth with professional telescopes when large areas are explored.

This project was presented during the 355 IAU Symposium “The Realm of the Low-Surface-Brightness Universe” that took place in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain) in 2019. Everything started at the podcast Coffee Break Señal y Ruido.

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