To find an astronomy project, try looking at the projects we have developed, here:
http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-f ... nomy.shtmlThese cover a vast range in background required, difficulty, and, frankly, quality. But I bet you can find something matched to your needs.
In order to become an astronomer you will need a PhD in astronomy, astrophysics, or physics. As your education progresses from high school to undergraduate studies to graduate studies the scope of your work will narrow in range and increase in level of expertise required. The level of competitiveness, alas, also increases. After obtaining a PhD, one typically spends 2-6 years as a "post-doc" before obtaining (if you are lucky) a more or less permanent post. Obtaining a faculty position at a research university is very difficult; consider that out of ~150,000,000 jobs in the US there are only ~1,000 astrophysics faculty at major research universities. There are maybe 1-2 thousand more positions at various research labs, especially at NASA. Currently the funding for astronomical research in the US is very tight and the future looks bad despite a plethora of new and exciting research tools and areas needing research. Maybe things will be better by the time you would need to be worrying about positions, but it is important that you enjoy being a student for the sake of the knowledge you gain since getting a research job has been and will continue to be pretty iffy. For the details of an astronomical career, just type "how do I become an astronomer" into Google and you will find lots of web pages providing salient information about all aspects of that topic.
Good luck with finding a fun project and beginning the long and interesting path to becoming an astronomer.