Suzy
you should email Alan Plummer-he's the person who wrote the article in the latest issue of AS&T and he will get you started with a simple visual project or two
alan.plummer@varstars.org
I started a visual program under his guidance but got distracted with trying to use my DSLR for CCD observations and then found that my DSLR was non linear anyway ..and gave it away..
should have stuck with the visual program and in fact will probably get back into it one of these days-something useful to do while imaging
Narayan