Soon afterwards, Hurless made her own 8-inch reflector telescope, which had a very short focal length and a compact tube assembly with a simple mounting that could be easily moved.

She contributed observations to a paper published by Bornhurst on differences between light curves of individual star eclipses.

Hurless, along with Peltier, Cragg, Ford, and Bornhurst made 767 observations of 29 individual eclipses, which were then compiled into a composite phase plot.

[2] Hurless advocated for a trick she called "heavy breathing" in an effort to detect very faint variable stars, which she learned from her mentor, Leslie Peltier.

Her first variable observation captured SS Cygni,[4] a dwarf nova star in the constellation Cygnus.

Dwarf novae are a class of intrinsic variable stars of the cataclysmic variety,[5] meaning their brilliance changes as a result of the fluctuating nature of the energy generated by thermonuclear interactions.

Subscribers were mostly other active observers who would occasionally gather at the Hurless' house for summer meetings.

These pilot programs were the first step towards creating an online education center, which was a goal left behind by Hurless.