Meshtitsa’s variable-star page describes an ambitious, year-round photometric campaign that turns a 0.25-m f/4.8 Newtonian plus an ASI 533 MM Pro camera and Baader Bessel B V R filters into a workhorse for professional research. A typical run uses 120- to 300-second exposures and reaches ≈0.04 mag precision, with all calibration and ensemble photometry handled in VPhot, AstroImageJ or Peranso before results are uploaded to the AAVSO International Database and—when the science warrants—announced in Astronomer’s Telegrams.

Priority watch-list

Rather than hopping randomly from target to target, the observatory maintains a curated watch-list of cataclysmic and related variables that exhibit eclipses, superhumps or stochastic “flickering”: LX Ser, RS Oph, AM Her, MV Lyr, V794 Aql, V751 Cyg, BG Tri, BZ Cam, and the nova-like KR Aur (where Meshtitsa detected the first positive superhumps in December 2024). Each star is revisited on a cadence matched to its characteristic timescale—from sub-minute flare monitoring to monthly state checks—so that long, homogeneous light-curves accumulate over years. 

National partnerships

Data reduction and interpretation are carried out in tandem with researchers at the Institute of Astronomy and National Astronomical Observatory, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (BAS). Svetlana Boeva and Georgi Latev, for example, incorporate Meshtitsa light-curves into their studies of accretion-disc flickering and eclipse-timing variations, often pairing the small-telescope photometry with Rozhen 2-m observational data.

International collaborations

• Red Dwarf Group (AAVSO). Meshtitsa supplies high-cadence B-band sequences of flare stars to the Red Dwarf Group’s database, where they are merged with spectra and data from other longitudes. The project benefits from Bulgaria’s clear winter skies, filling gaps that North-American and Pacific telescopes cannot cover. 

• AAVSO multi-wavelength campaigns. When space observatories require optical safety checks or contemporaneous light curves, AAVSO issues Alert Notices; Meshtitsa routinely answers these calls. A recent example is Alert Notice 868, asking for nightly photometry of BZ Cam so that Hubble and Chandra could schedule ultraviolet and X-ray pointings only when the star was in a safe brightness state. Meshtitsa’s data were submitted and helped lock in the final orbit allocation.