QUICK LINKS:	About TAC	Announcements	Mailing List Imaging List	Calendar	Observing Intents   Reports   Sites	Beginners	Home
PATH:	The Astronomy Connection Joining TAC

Joining The Astronomy Connection

If you are interested in observing, you are ready for TAC! TAC is an on-line meeting place for people like you to share their interest in visual, observational astronomy. Unlike a club, there are no dues, no board of directors, by-laws, no parliamentary procedure or Robert's Rules of order. TAC is what an observing group should be like!

If your interest is primarily imaging, check out TAC-Imaging

Ways to participate in TAC:

• Subscribe to our Mailing Lists, where you can...
  • Contribute to discussions about where to observe
  • Post reports about objects you've observed and placed you've observed them from.
  • Ask about equipment* you're thinking about buying.
  • Review (and brag about) your newest equipment* acquisition.
  • And most importantly, become a member of an observational-astronomy-focused community.
  
  
• Register as a member on our web-page. This brings you the benefits of:
  • Customizing your view of TAC's web page.
  • Receiving email from others without the risk of spammers harvesting your address.
  • The option of listing your URL.
  • More features to come...
  
  
• Watch our Targets & Events Calendar for observing opportunities and star party info.
   
• Read our current mailing list archives to see where and when we are going.

If you are an active bay-area astronomer, TAC welcomes you!

TAC by definition consists of people who get outside after dark, who share a love of the night sky. This online list exists solely to facilitate that nighttime hilltop community. What is on-topic on the TAC list is nicely summarized above, under Ways to Participate. Per request, here are further specifics.

We welcome all newcomers, be they experienced observers or just getting started. TAC is local to the San Francisco and Monterey Bay areas and Northern California. Group observing arrangements are made for the local area by posting and responding to Observing Intentions (OI's). Reports of observing are made by posting Observing Reports (OR's). OR's from members who travel to distant places to observe are most welcome.

The TAC list is a privately owned, actively managed mailinglist. Message threads which stray from our subject area will be terminated - gently at first, more firmly if required. Our listadmins are Czars in this domain.

We hold to the ancient and accepted laws of netiquette. Flames are bad. Me-too's and one-line encouragements such as "good report" should be sent privately.

Attachments won't run. The SEDS server has a message limit of 40 kb. Text only.

A few subjects are no longer welcome as they have suffered from overexposure. Please avoid introducing: green laser pointers, red plastic for laptop use at observing sites, laptop batteries. We're developing a FAQ to cover these very topics. Also, please make use of the handy fancy TAC search engine, top right on the main observers.org page. This list has been running for well over a decade and has an established culture. We're probably quirky but certainly friendly.

Please direct any questions or suggestions to the listadmins, named on the frontpage.

* Equipment refers to optical astronomy equipment to be used for direct visual observation.