&gt; Has anybody put together a project to build a &quot;distributed observatory&quot; to coordinate the efforts of a great number of amateur astronomers, each with a small telescope?<p>For the purposes of looking for faint objects, not that I&#x27;m aware of. But there is an effort called the &quot;Center for Backyard Astrophysics&quot;[0] that is a loose network of (mostly amateur) observatories to do long time series brightness measurements of variable stars. I was involved in taking some data with&#x2F;for them ~10 years ago while an undergrad[e.g., 1] and it was a fun experience.<p>[0] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cbastro.org&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;cbastro.org&#x2F;</a><p>[1] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;spiff.rit.edu&#x2F;richmond&#x2F;ritobs&#x2F;sep18_2005&#x2F;sep18_2005.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;spiff.rit.edu&#x2F;richmond&#x2F;ritobs&#x2F;sep18_2005&#x2F;sep18_2005.h...</a>