Abbreviations, etc.

[MishMich]

Hopefully the change will satisfy.

I will not add to the existing list any more, only correct errors in it. When other items are suggested, I will revise and submit as a new post.

M.

[MishMich]

My aplogies, LSW, I thought I had.

M.

[MishMich]

v.1.0

Acronyms and Abbreviations associated with amateur astronomy and associated equipment

Common terms:

OTA - Optical Tube Assembly

Newt - Newtonian reflector telescope

Frac - Refractor telescope

Dob - Dobsonian mounted reflector telescope

Cat - Catadioptric optical system

EP - Eyepieces

DSO - Deep Sky Object

RDF - Red Dot Finder

FR - Focal Ratio

FOV - Field of View

Bins - Binoculars

Obsy - Observatory

Mounts, Guiding, Location:

GEM - German Equatorial Mount

Alt-Az - Altitude-Azimuth (mount)

OAG - Off Axis Guider

RA - Right Ascension

DEC - Declination

ALT - Altitude

AZ - Azimuth

LAT - Lattitude

LONG - Longitude

Refractors:

ED - Extra-low Dispersion (glass)

Apo - Aprochromat(ic)

Achro - Achromat(ic)

Doublet - (2 lens assembly)

Triplet - (3 lens assembly)

Catadioptric optical systems:

SCT - Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope

Mak - Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope

RCT - Ritchey-Chrétien telescope

SNT - Schmidt-Newtonian telescope

KCT - Klevtsov-Cassegrain telescope

Filters, Flatteners, Reducers:

FF - Field Flattener

FR - Focal Reducer

CaK - Calcium K Line

H-A/Ha - Hydrogen Alpha

HB - Hydrogen Beta

OIII - Oxygen Three

SII - Sulphur Two (Sodium & Mercury)

LPR - Light Pollution Reduction

CLS - blocks light from street lamps, passes other visible light and H-alpha emissions.

Astrophotography, imaging, video related:

DSLR - Digital Single Lens Reflex

CCD - Charge-coupled Device

LCD - Liquid Crystal Display

LED - Light-emitting Diode

CMOS - Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor

CCTV - Closed Circuit Television

HDD - Hard Disk Drive

USB - Universal Serial Bus

RS232 - Serial Port/cable

HD - High Definition

RGB - Image is built from separate red, green and blue filtered images

R(G)B - You might see this with a Mars image and it means that only red and green were truly imaged during the session, the green channel was synthesised artificially.

LRGB - An RGB image augmented with a luminence channel. Actually, I have no idea what this means in reality as taking a true unfiltered luminence channel on a planet is pretty pointless IMO (In My Opinion).

RRGB - An RGB image that uses the red channel for luminance (now this makes much more sense!)

IR-RGB - An RGB image that uses an IR (Infra Red) filtered image for luminance.

People, positions, organisations, places:

PI - Principle Investigator

SPM - Sir Patrick Moore

FLO - First Light Optics

SGL - StarGazersLounge

TS - TeleskopService

Catalogs:

M (1 to 110) - Messier Catalogue (by Charles Messier)

NGC - New General Catalogue (by J.L.E. Dreyer), 7,840 objects. Includes IC I & IC II - a further 5,326 objects

C (1 to 109) Caldwell Catalogue (by Sir Patrick Moore)

IC = Index Catalogue, an addendum to the NGC

Misc:

CM - Central Meridian, that's the line of longitude running down the exact centre of the planet from your location.

Ls/Lsun - Planet-Sun angle as measured from the northern hemisphere spring equinox. Ls=0 means the planet is at spring, Ls=90 means the planet is experiencing summer in the northern hemisphere, LS=180 for the northern hemisphere autumn equinox and LS=270 for northern hemisphere winter.

F - Following, referring to features that are closer to the limb where new features are rotating into view, than P Preceding features which are closer to the limb where features are about to rotate out of view. Basically, features on the following limb are coming towards you while those on the preceding limb are moving away from you.

[MishMich]

Updated - some of the items updated in an earlier version got lost.

M.

[NickH]

Rob...sorry was in a blonde moment with Sodium (Na) (D line) solar... (re SII)

[Black Shuck]

Interesting - I couldn't find this when I looked. Had a quick browse - nothing like 'OTA' in there. This is not a glossary - it is a list of abbreviations, acronyms, etc. that people use so that people new to the forum can look them up when first encountering them. The glossary, as it stands, does something else. It explains the terms they stand for.

M.

Bob was looking for definitions of such terms as focal length and eye relief. As you say, these are not abbreviations so I simply pointed him in the right direction.

Bill£

[NickH]

A few more

FWHM - Full Width Half Maximum

FP - Fabrey Perot

SEF - Solid Etalon Filter

and another mammoth list

http://space.about.com/library/acronyms/blacroa.htm

[RobH]

Hi Nick....I actually thought it was sodium for a long while!

MM, sorry to be pedantic, but mercury has nothing to do with SII either.

Sodium Halides can affect the lines associated with mercury, but this doesn't do anything in the sulphur part of the spectrum.

Here are the spectra associated with Sulphur, Sodium and mercury, in that order, with the sulphur 2 line arrowed.

Cheers

Rob

[NickH]

Rob...

I did a long time ago too..but genuinely was not thinking striaght...as I am looking at some new solar toys as we speak...;-)..(see my last additions). should be fun...if the big orangey yellow thing decides to put in an appearance again.

All good this though...I didn't know what some of the common internet silly ones meant... :-)

[narrowbandpaul]

here are some I might include

Hubble pallette= R=S2 G=Ha B=O3

CFHT= Canada-France Hawaii Telescope

CFHT Pallete = R=Ha G=O3, B=S2

NBI=NarrowBand Imaging

eline= emission line

CA= chromatic aberration

SA=spherical aberration

(in CCD world):

KAF= Kodak Full Frame technology

KAI= Kodak Interline technology

SBIG= Santa Barbara Instrument Group

FLI= Finger lakes Instrumentation

SX= Starlight Xpress

CFA= Colour Filter Array

CMY = cyan magenta yellow

ADC = analogue to digital converter

CDS = Correlated Double Sampling

MP= megapixel

um= size in microns, or micrometres

nm= nanometres

SNR = signal to noise ratio

TAK= Takahashi

AP= AstroPhysics (or also Astrophotography sometimes)

SW =skywatcher

OO= orion optics (the guys based in crewe)

i might think of more....

hth

[NickH]

Nice additions Paul...like it!...

TMB - Thomas M Back (Designer of lens assemblies)

WO - WIlliam Optics

IT - Interline Transfer (or information technology)

[LukeSkywatcher]

There are a few i learned from my tutors in college while studying web design and computers but i dont think i can post them here as this is a family forum. I think many of you will already know them. They dont pop up in astronomy.

[MishMich]

Bob was looking for definitions of such terms as focal length and eye relief. As you say, these are not abbreviations so I simply pointed him in the right direction.

Bill£

Apologies. I misunderstood. I did wonder if they could be incorporated, but think they serve a different purpose. Ideally, they could link to the definitions and explanations (and the bulk of the items under 'Misc' could probably be relocated there, leaving just the abbreviation and what it abbreviates). Not quite sure how to go about that as a user - maybe an admin could look at that? Alternatively, a link to Wikipedia might suffice?

M.

[narrowbandpaul]

i swithered with TMB nick...

you see when someone says I have a tak, they mean they have a takahashi, but noone say i have a TMB, where properly they would say I have a Thomas M Back....so Im not sure,,,,

but certainly TMB= Thomas M Back (sadly no longer with us)..................

APOD = Astronomy Picture of the Day

OTF= optical transfer function

CTF= contrast transfer function

PSF= point spread function

NBP= narrowbandpaul

HFD= half flux diameter (used in focussing)

HD= Henry Draper Catalogue

SH2-xxx= Sharpless2 Catalogue

AGN= active galactic Nuclei

BH= black hole

NS= Neutron star

WD= white dwarf

QE= Quantum Efficiency

CTE= charge transfer efficiency

CCE= charge collection efficiency

DR= dynamic range

HDR= High Dynamic Range

PS= Photoshop

DSS = DeepSky Stacker

and I really dropped the ball forgetting WO!

IT...probably best as Info Technology, way more common than Interline transfer.

thats my offerings

[MishMich]

Hi Rob,

should I leave out the sodium & mercury then? It is something about which I know nothing - I was going by supplier's details. (Begs the question - if the people who sell this stuff don't know, how we are supposed to figure it out)

M.

[NickH]

BF - Blocking filter

ITF - Induced transmission filter

ERF - Energy rejection filter

TMB's just to clarify for anyone what it means...when people refer to a "TMB" scope.. ...sadly missed for sure

[narrowbandpaul]

my point exactly MM....the folk supply astrogear should know what they are talking about. Most do....but a few sadly dont!

[MishMich]

Is TAL the name, or an acronym?

M.

[LukeSkywatcher]

APOD..................

Good one. That one eluded us all.

Interesting to see what TMB is.

BH................i've used it...............and i spend as little time in my life talking about them as possible.

WOW.......reading all of this.........astronomy really has a language all of its own. Its a bit like TXT (or is that SMS) on mobile phones.

This is a GR8 thread. I for one am learning so much. The final list should really be made into a sticky.

[LukeSkywatcher]

BF - Blocking filter

Sorry but BF is the universal online abbrev for Boyfriend.

[NickH]

BF10/BF15 - Is that a good night out then in Essex (Shannon Centre near Goodmayes anyone?)

:-)

Astro forum = Astro acronyms

[LukeSkywatcher]

BF10/BF15 - Is that a good night out then in Essex (Shannon Centre near Goodmayes anyone?)

Oh the Essex chavs are gonna be out for your blood.

The fact i just called them chavs means they will also be out for mine.

Nice knowing you Nick.

[kev 102 42]

Common term P O W-picture of the week......kev

[NickH]

BF10/BF15 - Is that a good night out then in Essex (Shannon Centre near Goodmayes anyone?)

Oh the Essex chavs are gonna be out for your blood.

The fact i just called them chavs means they will also be out for mine.

Nice knowing you Nick.

I didn't call the blokes anything...:-)

Spent many a happy night in the Shannon Centre... in "me rock band" days...

[Black Shuck]

Apologies. I misunderstood. I did wonder if they could be incorporated, but think they serve a different purpose. Ideally, they could link to the definitions and explanations (and the bulk of the items under 'Misc' could probably be relocated there, leaving just the abbreviation and what it abbreviates). Not quite sure how to go about that as a user - maybe an admin could look at that? Alternatively, a link to Wikipedia might suffice?

M.

No worries M. Given the amount of work you and others are putting into this then I would say that it deserves consideration - sounds like a good idea to me.

Bill£