1.0: Introduction

The ATM mailing list is a gathering of amateur telescope makers made possible through the email system. Members of the list generally engage in one or more aspects of telescope and accessory making. For example, you will find people who grind their own mirrors, build telescopes using purchased or "home-made" optics, build drives or correctors, build CCD cameras, and more.

The ATM mailing list allows these individuals to exchange ideas, seek or provide help with problems, and to further the hobby of telescope making. You do not need to be an expert to join in. In fact, most of the list members are "lurkers" who read a lot and post little so that they can learn and gain encouragement to tackle their dream projects. The members of the ATM list are generally very helpful and very friendly. In fact, we feel this is the friendliest gathering of individuals on the 'Net.

The ATM mailing list is available in "normal" and digest form. See section 1.3 for information on joining the list.

This FAQ will help to answer some of the more common questions beginners have about making their own telescopes. It also describes the ATM Mailing list, the list's rules, and resources available for telescope makers. This FAQ by no means intends to provide you instructions on how to build your telescope or optics. For that, there are many good books (see section 4).

1.1: ATM Mailing list resources

Resource		Description and link
Subscribing/Unsubscribing		To subscribe to or unsubscribe from the ATM Mailing list, see section 1.3.
Archives		Archives of messages sent to the ATM list (in a searchable, Web-based format) are stored at http://www.atmlist.net/pipermail/atm/. Archives prior to January 2004, are available at http://www.system.missouri.edu/atm/.
List Owner		Mike Lindner (atm-owner@atmlist.net) is the list administrator. Problems with the list should be directed to him.
FAQ Locations		The ATM List FAQ can be found in HTML format at http://www.atmlist.net/www.starastronomy.org/TelescopeMaking/faq/ or http://www.starastronomy.org/TelescopeMaking/faq/index.html. This document is mirrored on the ATM Site at http://www.atmsite.org
FAQ Administrator		Michael Lindner (with help from others) (atm-owner@atmlist.net) is the FAQ maintainer. Problems or corrections to the FAQ should be directed to him.
Sending a message to the list		The ATM list is a members' only group: only members can post messages to the list. If you are a member, you can post messages to the list by sending mail to atm@atmlist.net. Non-members, please join first.
The File Area		The ATM List file area is a place where ATM list members can share non-text information (the list itself only accepts text emails). It can be viewed at http://www.atmlist.net/contrib. Files can be uploaded at http://www.atmlist.net/uploads

1.2: ATM List Rules

• Keep postings on-topic - you are expected to keep your postings within the range of expected topics. Follow these guidelines:
  • It is proper netiquette to monitor a list for several days or even a week or two to see what goes on, what the customs are, the level of discussion, etc. Please do that before making your first post to the list.
  • Acceptable topics include: mirror making, telescope and mount making, accessory construction (drives, eyepieces, and so forth), camera and CCD making, locating suppliers, optics testing, and so forth.
  • Unacceptable topics include: observing, observation reports, selling or soliciting, notices of auctions or items for sale, commercial telescopes or systems (unless you're talking about modifying, adding to, etc.), and so forth.
  • Here's a note from the list owner specifying some topics that are and are not acceptable. Please use your best judgement.
• Keep quoted text to a minimum - when responding to other member's messages, do not repeat their entire message as part of your note. Quote only relevant sections of their message. Delete all other text of their message. (Some members pay on a per-byte basis. When you quote the entire previous note, you increase participation costs for these members.)
• Make subject headers accurate - please make your subject headers concise and accurate. If the thread of conversation shifts, please adjust the subject line accordingly.
• Keep your signature brief - Signatures (those lines at the end of your email message telling us who you are) should be no more than 3 or 4 lines long. Any more than that is inconsiderate and annoying. One list member's signature block is over 20 lines long! Come on, do you really think we need to know your department's mission statement on the ATM list?!
• Consideration - always be considerate of the other members on the list. Remember, you are speaking to real people here, not computers. Also, this is a very international list. Avoid bias, racial or ethnic slurs, country-oriented jokes, and so forth.
• Profanity - Generally, the use of profanity is not acceptable on this list.
• Spamming - Spamming, postings of advertisements, and so forth are not tolerated on this list.
• Message contents - Please post only text (ASCII) messages to the list. Do not post MIME or HTML encoded messages or include graphics, either as attachments or UUENCODED text, in your messages to the list. For more information, read the document on MIME/HTML/UUENCODING. If you want graphics or other non-text information along with your messages, please upload your file(s) to the File Upload Area and include a URL in your message.
• File Upload Rules
  • Usage - The File Upload Area is for ATM stuff ONLY. Private uploads, offtopic contents, illegal or copyrighted material (that you do not hold the copyright to), etc. are not permitted. We may ask you to remove such material, or remove it for you. Abusers may be banned from the list, etc. etc.
  • Courtesy - Please be courteous to other list members. If you want to post your foucault readings, do that in a normal message as text - don't upload a screen shot of the readings...if you have a new spider design, upload a GIF file rather than an XYZ cad drawing that nobody can read without buying XYZ-CAD (you could upload both the image and CAD files)...you get the idea.
  • Quotas - There are no enforced quotas for the moment, but please keep your total uploads under 50MB. Stuff of EXCEPTIONAL value in any one user's directories could exceed 50MB after confirming it with administrators at atm-owner@atmlist.net.
  • Fancy Stuff - This is not intended to be a website for you, so please don't use it as such. CGI scripts will not work (although you can upload them for others to download) and HTML files will be displayed as HTML (please avoid naming a file index.html or it will make it hard for other members to see your list of files. If your files end in .shtml they will be parsed for includes (see section for SSI in the apache documentation).

The ATM list represents one of the friendliest gathering of individuals on the 'Net. No one has yet been asked to leave the list for poor conduct. Please help maintain the friendly, helpful nature of the group.

1.3 Subscribing and unsubscribing

Whichever version you subscribe to, you need to make sure you can receive the emails. In a perfect world, that would be simple, but unfortunately, we live in a world of SPAM (unsolicited junk email). If you use AOL to receive your ATM list email you may find the following note from Dominic DiLeo useful. If you have different SPAM filtering software in place, make sure you set things up to be able to receive email from atmlist.net even if it is not explicitly addressed to you (list emails are addressed to the list, atm@atmlist.net).

AOL 9 holds all blocked mails in a quarantine folder, called a spam folder. The user can choose to release any address simply by highlighting it and striking the ' NOT SPAM ' key.

If an individual is running other versions of AOL, they can go to aol.com and click on the mailbox icon in the upper left corner of the page. This will open up a mailbox with the same control options of AOL 9's mailbox configuration.

The list is automated, so when you send your request to subscribe or unsubscribe, no person will review your request. Make sure to follow these instructions carefully.

There are two ways to subscribe, unsubscribe, change your email address or other subscription options.

Subscribing/unsubscribing/changing options via the web

Go to http://www.atmlist.net/mailman/listinfo.cgi/atm and follow the instructions there. The link to change your subscriber information or unsubscribe is at the bottom of the page.

Subscribing/unsubscribing/changing options via email

If you do not have web access, or prefer to handle your atm list subscription by email, here's what you need to know. Also see the mailman documentation for details.

• atm@atmlist.net - this is the email address people should use for new postings to the list. If you send email to this address without joining, your email will not appear on the list.
• atm-join@atmlist.net - by sending a message to this address, a new member can request subscription to the list. Both the Subject: header and body of such a message are ignored. Note that atm-subscribe@atmlist.net is an alias for the -join address.
• atm-leave@atmlist.net - by sending a message to this address, a member can request unsubscription from the list. As with the -join address, the Subject: header and body of the message is ignored. Note that atm-unsubscribe@atmlist.net is an alias for the -leave address.
• atm-owner@atmlist.net - This address reaches the list owner and list moderators directly. This is the address you use if you need to contact the person or people in charge.
• atm-request@atmlist.net - This address reaches a mail robot which processes email commands that can be used to set member subscription options, as well as process other commands. See the mailman documentation Appendix A and Appendix B for a list of commands and options.

1.4 The File Upload Area

Let's say you want to show list members a foucaultgram of a mirror to ask for figuring help. You can go to http://www.atmlist.net, click on "Upload files" and enter the email address and password that you used to subscribe to the list (if you have forgotten your password, click on "Subscribe, unsubscribe, manage your subscription options" and then "Unsubscribe or edit options" and you will be taken to a page where you can have your password emailed to you).

After entering your email address and password you can upload a file which will appear on the ATM list server at http://www.atmlist.net/contrib/mikell-at-optonline-dot-net (note that the last part will be generated from your email address).

You can then use the URL of that file in a post to the ATM list. To get the URL, click on the file name with the right-hand mouse button and select "Copy Link Location" (or whatever similar copy command your browser displays). Then the URL can be pasted into your email message to the list like this:

Here's what my mirror looks like! How can I get rid of this central hill? http://www.atmlist.net/contrib/mikell-at-optonline-dot-net/foucaultgram1.jpg

Readers of your email can then download the image or other file if they wish to.There are some things to note:

• You must be a list member to upload files.
• Anybody can see files you upload, not just members.
• The upload passwords may lag behind the list passwords by up to two hours. If you are a new subscriber or you change your list password, and can't upload a file immediately, that's why.
• If you change your email, your old files remains in their old place in the state you left it. New files will go in a directory (folder) with your new email address' name.
• Please read the List Rules for rules on usage of this service.

Proceed to section 2