Newbie question on contributing to astronomy

Davoud wrote:
OK, just kidding. I've been in Bombay, so I know what you're up
against. You didn't say whether you can easily get out of the city,
or
whether you have a local astronomy club. I know that there are many
amateur astronomers in India, so you should be able to find a club
for
guidance. Meanwhile, you could consider getting a pair of binoculars
and a tripod with a holder for the binoculars. One of Bombay's many
very fine machine shops could build you a binocular holder that will
mount on a tripod or other support. Good luck!

Sorry, I didn't mention it but getting out of the city is a bit of a
problem. I've taken the binoculars to telescope route earlier (when I
was in Muscat) but ran into the same problem of costs and light
pollution. Eventually, you need to invest in a mega-$$$ telescope to
spot deep space objects. What I was looking for is what kind of
activities that can I do sitting on my chair with a computer like data
crunching (other than SETI ), analysing some data, writing some
custom scripts/programs or remotely monitoring certain output.

- Siddhartha