Paul – I’m pretty sure that the scatter is due to faint stars in the aperture since this is a very crowded field. I think it is far to early to say anything about the lightcurve of this object but the more observations the better. I have used DAOPHOT and it can be very good but I’ve not been able to get it to work reliably with moving objects.
Just a thought: have you tried using DAOPHOT on each sub to remove the stars and then stack the remaining sky background? All that should be left are the very faint objects.
Not suggesting it will give results which are any better but it may prove an interesting experiment.
