What science can I really do with my configuration

John:

I think the consensus is that there's a lot of contribution that you can provide. Perhaps it's easiest to start with what you should stay away from: anything with extreme color (such as the generally-red long-period variables, including the Miras).

But there's a lot of other stuff where your camera's Bayer filter won't be the limiting element of your system. For example, you could explore eclipsing binaries, where the primary product of your work is not a brightness, per se, but instead is a timing measurement: the time of minimum of an eclipse. There's an entire observing section within the AAVSO dedicated to eclipsing binaries -- that's a good place for you to start. They have well-studied EBs, where additional observations are needed to feed our knowledge of how the orbital period may be changing over time. They have poorly-studied EBs, some of which don't even have a solid period yet.

With some observing skill, your telescope/camera combination is probably sufficient for exoplanet transit timing. You could contribute to the joint AAVSO/NASA exoplanet transit timing work that is currently ongoing. Again, there's an AAVSO observing section (and CHOICE course) you can use as a resource.

There are classes of short-period variables that have "ordinary" stellar color (which would be good potential targets for your system). And, again, there's an associated AAVSO observing section.

I urge you to pick something (as long as it isn't a deep red star), and start doing deliberate photometry with it. Use the AAVSO comparison star sequences to look at your measurement errors. You can pretty quickly create your own plot of measurement error vs color to get a feel for the overall accuracy you're achieving and to see just what range of colors seems to work well with your system.

And find a mentor through the AAVSO mentoring program!

- Mark M (MMU)