Observing projects, from which you should choose two
 
Stellar evolution in globular clusters
Main observational challenges: measuring accurate magnitudes and colors of about 104 stars in a crowded field, over a 9-10 magnitude range; identifying several dozen periodically-variable cluster members, and measuring the cluster distance thereby.
The nuclei of Seyfert galaxies
Main observational challenges: making particularly sharp images of certain nearby spiral galaxies, measuring size and color of their nuclei, and the colors of clusters and star-formation regions elsewhere in the galaxies.
Observations of transiting exoplanets
Main observational challenges: achieving very precise and accurate (<< 1%) relative photometriic measurements; planning time-critical observations. See below for a couple of utilities.
Asteroid 306128 Pipher
Main observational challenges: tracking and observing faint objects at non-sidereal rates; detecting and characterizing variability that is not necessarily periodic.
Excitation of H II regions
Main observational challenges: precise and acccurate narrowband photometry; spectrophotometry of extended objects.
See also the long form addendum to the spectral-line imaging lesson.
Herbig-Haro objects and mass loss from protostars
Main observational challenges: precise and acccurate narrowband photometry; spectrophotometry of extended objects.
Drylab projects 2020
Bad weather and a pandemic have really ruined the main point of this course.
 
Common to all the projects
 
Telescope startup and shutdown
Guide to observations
Telescope operation, target acquisition, autoguiding, and camera operation.
Guide to image reduction
Basic image calibration, alignment, coaddition, and composition using CCDStack.
Exoplanet transit tools
Swarthmore transit predictor | Exoplanet Archive at IPAC
  IDL resources
List of astrolib routines | Bob O'Connell's IDL tutorial | His astronomer's guide to IDL |  Aaron Barth's ATV instructions
Sample data: H II regions and HH objects
M 42, Ha, flux calibrated, units = erg s-1 cm-2 ster-1, 64 MB. One big H II region, three decent-size HH objects, and a detectable proplyd.
Calibration data for Camera #1 (2014, 5-filter wheel)
1x1 dark   1x1 bias   2x2 dark   2x2 bias
Calibration data for Camera #2 (2019, 7-filter wheel)
1x1 dark   1x1 bias   2x2 dark   2x2 bias