Almost every field of endeavor adopts a sort of shorthand – abbreviations that stand for frequently used words. We do the same. The following are some abbreviations that have been used in this newsletter.

AL – Astronomical League

ALPO – Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers

APO – Apochromatic refracting telescope

AU – Astronomical Unit (Earth-Sun distance = 1 AU)

CCD – Charge Coupled Device (electronic imaging)

CME – Coronal Mass Ejection (major ejection of charged particles from the sun)

DEC – Declination

FOV – Field of View

GEM – German Equatorial Mounting

HST – Hubble Space Telescope

IC – Index Catalog of deep sky objects

IR – Infrared

NGC – New General Catalog of Deep Sky Objects

OIII – Oxygen III line filter for observing nebulas

OTA – Optical Tube Assembly (used when referring to the telescope itself, without a mounting)

RA – Right Ascension

S&T – Sky & Telescope magazine

SCT – Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope

UHC – Ultra High Contrast (nebula filter)

URL – Uniform Resource Locator (Internet address)

UT or UTC – Universal Time constant (formerly Greenwich Mean Time), which is 6 hours ahead of Central Standard Time (CST)

UV – Ultraviolet

x – power or magnification (as in "150x")