Lew & Karen's Home Page

What is IAAC?

What is "Deep-Sky"? (+ links)

Email Access to IAAC

History of IAAC

Find a Deep-Sky Object...

The Observation Archive...

The DISCUSSION Archive...

Enter Your Own Observation!

Frequently Asked Questions

Subscribing to the List!

NetAstroCatalog -
a mailing list for "deep sky" observers of all levels

What is the Internet Amateur Astronomers Catalog (IAAC)?

The Internet Amateur Astronomers Catalog (IAAC or 'netastrocatalog' for short) is a forum for amateur astronomers at all levels to share their observations of Deep-Sky objects. (The 'deep-sky' includes all objects which are NOT members of our solar system: other galaxies, star clusters, gaseous nebulae, doubles, and variable stars are all deep-sky objects). Note that the netastrocatalog is a *catalog of amateur observations*, not a sales catalog of any kind!

If you'd like to submit your OWN observation of any astronomical object, please fill out the following Web form with your observation:
http://www.visualdeepsky.org/enter-log.html

Or, if you use one of the wonderful observation-planning applications out there, such as Jeff Bondono's dObjects or DeepSky2000, you may simply be able to submit your observations to the IAAC via a menu item in your application. Ask your software author about this!

Once you submit your observation to netastrocatalog, it will appear on the World Wide Web along with countless other amateurs' efforts, within a week or so. In addition, all 'netastrocatalog' subscribers will see your submission immediately! The whole (LARGE) archive of previous logs is available at:
http://www.visualdeepsky.org/netastrocatalog/maillist.html

Or you may search for observations of a particular object at:
http://www.visualdeepsky.org/search.html

Finally, there is a mechanism for searching observations via email, using the 'retrieve' command in MajorDomo. If you would like to find out more about this, email the list administrator.

Last but not least, if you submit your logs to any of the deep-sky observing societies, then you may simply "Cc:" your observation posting to their respective email addresses as well! The Webb Society for instance, has indicated that our format is acceptable to them.

NOTE: In addition to the main 'netastrocatalog' list (which is only intended for observations by amateur astronomers), all participants are also automatically subscribed to a mailing list for DISCUSSIONS and ANNOUNCEMENTS relating to the IAAC, called netastrocatalog-announce. Again, by subscribing to either of these two lists, you are actually automatically subscribing to BOTH. Similarly, unsubscribing from either automatically unsubscribes you from both.