Acronyms and abbreviations

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Acronyms and Abbreviations

Common terms:

RDF - Red Dot Finder

Bins - Binoculars

Obsy - Observatory

POW - Picture of the Week

POTM - Picture of the month

Astronomy:

DSO - Deep Sky Object

BH - Black Hole

NS - Neutron Star

WD - White Dwarf

HDF - Hubble Deep Field

PN - Planetary Nebula

SR - Special Relativity

GR - General Relativity

QM - Quantum Mechanics

Catalogs:

M - Messier Catalogue

NGC - New General Catalogue

C - Caldwell Catalogue

IC - Index Catalogue

HD - Henry Draper Star Catalogue

SH2 - Sharpless2 Nebula Catalogue

Mounts, Guiding, Location:

EQ - Equatorial (mount)

GEM - German Equatorial Mount

Alt-Az - Altitude-Azimuth (mount)

MF - Meridian Flip

OAG - Off Axis Guider

RA - Right Ascension

DEC - Declination

ALT - Altitude

AZ - Azimuth

LAT - Lattitude

LONG - Longitude

CM - Central Meridian

Optics:

F/ratio - Focal Ratio

FOV - Field of View

CA - Chromatic Aberration

SA - Spherical Aberration

IR - Infra Red

UV - Ultra Violet

Telescopes:

EP - Eyepieces

OTA - Optical Tube Assembly

Newt - Newtonian reflector telescope

Frac - Refractor telescope

Dob - Dobsonian mounted reflector telescope

Cat - Catadioptric optical system

PST - Personal Solar Telescope

Refractor specific:

ED - Extra-low Dispersion

Apo - Apochromat

Achro - Achromat

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

MNT - Maksutov-Newtonian telescope (Mak-Newt)

Filters, Flatteners, Reducers:

FF - Field Flattener / Flat Field reduction

FR - Focal Reducer

LPR - Light Pollution Reduction

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

IR-cut - IR blocking filter

IR-pass - IR pass filter

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

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).

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

NBI - NarrowBand Imaging

KAF - Kodak Full Frame technology

CFA - Colour Filter Array

MP - megapixel

S/NR - signal to noise ratio

DSS - DeepSky Stacker

DR - dynamic range

HDR - High Dynamic Range

PS - Photoshop

OSC - One Shot Colour. (CCD camera that takes colour images without use of filters)

People, positions, organisations, places:

EMS - east Midlands Stargazers

SPM - Sir Patrick Moore

FLO - First Light Optics

SGL - StarGazersLounge

TS - TeleskopService

SW - skywatcher

OO - orion optics (the guys based in crewe)

TMB - Thomas M. Back (& lens assemblies of his design)

WO - WIlliam Optics

Tak - Takahashi

TV – Televue

S@N - Sky at Night

CN - Cloudy Nights (web forum)

UKAI - UK Astro Imaging Forum (web forum)

IS - Imaging Source (Camera company)

DMK/DBK/DFK - Cameras made by IS

PHD - Guide application software (Push Here Dummy)

CDC - Cartes Du Ciel (Planetarium Software)

AP - AstroPhysics (can be Astrophotography)

SBIG - Santa Barbara Instrument Group

SX - Starlight Xpress

HST - Hubble Space Telescope

NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration