On Thu, Apr 20, 2000 at 10:47:40AM -0700, Mark Abraham wrote:
> Prism CCD and Charting Software
>
> Anyone using this package?
>

I use PRISM for charting, telescope control, camera control, image processing
and photometric and astrometric reductions. It's now available in Version 4.
The official website is http://www.astroccd.com/prism.

> Do you like it?
I like it very much. It is extremely feature rich, everything you need is
in one single program and easily scriptable. But maybe the best thing is its
incredibly low price compared to most american software. It sells for $75.

> Anyone translated the instructions from French to
> English yet?
The new version is available in both french and english language releases.
The help files are still in french but should be available in english soon.

Markus Kempf

Remember that a "G11"-sized mount is what was sold in the 70s for
6- and 8-inch telescopes.  For a C14 you'll need either a Paramount or
AP1200 for good pointing/tracking.

\Brian

You would be pushing the G-11 with a C-14 on it

-----Original Message-----
From: John Ruthroff [mailto:jruthroff@...]
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2000 12:53
To: MPML
Subject: {MPML} Somewhat OT: "Skywalker/G11" GOTO for astrometry


Does anyone use this combination mount/GOTO for astrometry?

I previously had a G11 that I retrofitted  with another manufacturers
after market GOTO system.  Not only were the images useless for
astrometry, they were pretty much useless for anything, star images were
quite elliptical.

I'm halfway though a major upgrade of camera/'scope/mount and would like
to avoid going down the wrong path again.  I'm very seriously
considering a C-14 OTA on a G-11, but the GOTO is a practical
necessity.  I wonder about the mount and drive's ability to go 120 to
180 seconds and (assuming an excellent polar alignment) get round stars.

Regards to all,

John Ruthroff
744 Doyan Rose


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David and Petr:

I looked again at the orbit of 1998 SQ162. It is as follows in my files:

1998 SQ162
Epoch 2000 Feb. 26.0 TT = JDT 2451600.5                 Bowell
M  47.06368              (2000.0)            P               Q
n   0.17359451     Peri.  194.16252     +0.06433993     -0.99003744
a   3.1825755      Node   252.26470     +0.92790283     +0.10553672
e   0.1952542      Incl.    7.55594     +0.36722841     -0.09320871
P   5.68           H   13.6           G   0.15           U   6
Residuals in seconds of arc
980926 704  1.1+  0.6+    980927 704 (3.4+  3.7+)   981111 704  0.7+  0.2-
980926 704  1.2-  0.2+    981110 704  1.0-  1.0+    981111 704  1.6+  1.4-
980926 704  0.6+  0.0     981110 704  1.7-  0.4+    981111 704  1.3+  1.8-
980926 704  0.5-  0.9-    981110 704  0.9-  0.8+    981117 699  0.0   0.5+
980927 704 (5.1+  1.0+)   981110 704  1.4-  0.9+    981117 699  0.1-  0.0
980927 704 (5.3+  3.4+)   981111 704  1.5+  0.1+    981117 699  0.5-  0.2-
980927 704 (5.4+  1.3+)   981111 704  0.5+  0.0

J98SG2Q 0.15J995U887275719416251512522647039007555939225611643610195254177 K
02Q1998 SQ162 13.6  K 02Q  47.1 194.2 252.3   7.6 0.195   3.183   1    52    16
Bowell    MPC xxxxx J989Q J98BH  0.91 h M-v 003E        27725

The conclusion is pretty clear: the Sep observations do not jibe with
the Nov ones. In other words, the Sep-Nov linkage is spurious, and
there are actually two different asteroids.

Note to Graff: In view of the failure to recover 1998 SQ162, I am sure
you will agree that the above interpretation is correct, and redesignate
the Nov observations accordingly.

Cheers...Ted

Andreas,

With Eudora, you can use the filters function, and transfer to an MPML
folder messages which contain {MPML} in the subject line.

works for me,


Robert.


PS> just a hint for those new to eGroups, please take the time to trim
off the "commercial" content at the bottom of messages when you reply.
This will reduce the excess junk stored in the archives, and is just a
friendly thing to do for all correspondants.


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andreas Doppler [mailto:doppler@...]
> Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2000 8:09 AM
> To: mpml@egroups.com
> Subject: {MPML} OT : probs with email
>
>
> Sorry for being offtopic:
>
> does someone know, why it is impossible to automatically
> redirect received email from egroups.com with eudora?
>
> Andreas
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> ProMarkt Service GmbH & Co. KG
> Kolonnenstraße 30f                               Tel. +49-30-78787647
> D-10829 Berlin                                   Fax  +49-30-78787668
> www.promarkt-service.de                   doppler@...
>
>

Does anyone use this combination mount/GOTO for astrometry?

I previously had a G11 that I retrofitted  with another manufacturers
after market GOTO system.  Not only were the images useless for
astrometry, they were pretty much useless for anything, star images were
quite elliptical.

I'm halfway though a major upgrade of camera/'scope/mount and would like
to avoid going down the wrong path again.  I'm very seriously
considering a C-14 OTA on a G-11, but the GOTO is a practical
necessity.  I wonder about the mount and drive's ability to go 120 to
180 seconds and (assuming an excellent polar alignment) get round stars.

Regards to all,

John Ruthroff
744 Doyan Rose

Prism CCD and Charting Software

Anyone using this package?

Do you like it?
How are you using it?
Anyone translated the instructions from French to
English yet?


It bosts quite a few features, and I own it, but my
French is quite lousy.  I am wondering if anyone is
using it for scripting and auto-reductions?

Thanks!
Mark
http://www.everstar.com




__________________________________________________
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Send online invitations with Yahoo! Invites.
http://invites.yahoo.com

http://www.discovery.com/news/briefs/20000419/geology_crater.html

Killer Crater Found
By Larry O'Hanlon,
Discovery.com News

April 19, 2000 -- Australian geologists have discovered the buried remains
of an 80-mile wide impact crater that could be the culprit behind the worst
extinction catastrophe in Earth's history.

Geologists detected the crater through smashed mineral grains and magnetic
and gravity measurements of the region around the town of Woodleigh, near
Shark Bay on Australia's west coast.

Although no precise age for the crater -- the fourth largest in the world --
has been determined yet, it appears to be 250-360 million years old, making
it a possible source for the massive Permian-Triassic extinction event that
wiped out almost all life on the planet 250 million years ago.

The Permian-Triassic die-off destroyed 96 percent of all sea life and nearly
as much on land. It dwarfs the 65-million-year-old Cretaceous-Tertiary
extinctions that eradicated 75 percent of species, including the dinosaurs.

"The global environmental effects would have been catastrophic," said
Geological Survey of Western Australia geoscientist Robert Iasky, who, with
colleague Arthur Mory, hunted down the crater.

The researchers reported their find in the April 15 issue of Earth and
Planetary Science Letters.

The Woodleigh impact crater ranks fourth largest on Earth, after the
200-mile-wide Vredefort crater in South Africa, the 165-mile wide Sudbury
crater in Canada and the famous 120-mile-wide alleged dino-killing Chicxulub
impact crater in the Gulf of Mexico.

The timing of the Woodleigh crater, rather than its size, makes it a
candidate for the cause of the massive Permian-Triassic extinction event.
The global damage caused by a meteor or comet impact varies greatly
according to size, speed, the angle it strikes the Earth and whether it hits
on land or sea.

Although petroleum-prospecting geologists first happened upon evidence of
the crater while drilling in the red-sand region in the 1970s, they didn't
realize what they had found. It wasn't until 1997, when a gravity survey of
the area revealed a round structure with a telltale rebound dome in the
center, that suspicions of a crater were roused.

In 1999, geologists returned to the hole drilled over the crater's central
mound and drilled deeper -- collecting "shocked" grains of quartz that are
strong evidence of an impact.

"We identified this as being a product of extreme pressures during severe
shock caused by an extraterrestrial impact," said Iasky. "In other words, a
meteor impact."

"There doesn't seem to be any doubt about it," said earth scientist and
impact specialist Michael Rampino of New York University.

It's also fairly certain such a huge impact caused extinctions, he said. But
whether it caused the great Permian-Triassic extinctions remains to be seen.
"It's tantalizing but not proven," Rampino said.

Lesser extinctions that might have been caused by the Woodleigh impact
include one 364 million years ago and another 247 million years ago, Iasky
said.

I'd be interested to get a compilation from those who work the fainter
targets on how to get the highest possible S/N *without* sacrificing
limiting magnitude too severely. I know there are many limiting factors but
feel free to cover the obvious and the trade secrets. Thanks.


Clear Skies,
Brian Warner
716 Palmer Divide Observatory
Colorado Springs, CO

http://www.MinorPlanetObserver.com

NEAR Shoemaker Science Update
           April 18, 2000
           http://near.jhuapl.edu/news/sci_updates/000418.html

           As NEAR Shoemaker descends ever closer to Eros, the
           spacecraft's orbit becomes ever more sensitive to the
           details of the gravity field produced by the asteroid.
           Just as NEAR Shoemaker must orbit close enough to Eros
           to detect any magnetic field from the asteroid (April 7
           update), it must also get close to Eros to feel
           disturbances from the irregular shape of the asteroid
           and to search for any mass concentrations or voids
           within it. Both the gravity investigation and the
           magnetic field investigation are studying the interior
           of Eros, whereas the other investigations - imaging,
           laser ranging, infrared, x-ray and gamma ray
           spectroscopy - study the surface. The surface for gamma
           rays is much deeper than that for visible light (more on
           that another time), but even gamma rays see only some
           ten centimeters deep.

           Although both gravity and magnetism have the property of
           decreasing in field strength away from the source of the
           field, they are fundamentally different from each other.
           As was mentioned on April 7, the simplest possible
           configuration of magnetic poles is the dipole consisting
           of one north-seeking pole paired with one south-seeking
           pole. Isolated magnetic poles (e.g., north-seeking only)
           do not exist. However, the exact opposite is true for
           gravity. The simplest configuration of gravity is that
           of an isolated "pole", which we actually call a "point
           mass", and gravitational dipoles do not exist. This is a
           fancy way of saying something that everyone knows,
           namely, that all masses attract one another by gravity.
           This is different from the situation with magnetic poles
           - there are two types (north-seeking and south-seeking),
           of which opposite types of pole attract each other, but
           like poles repel.

           The simplest possible gravity field is that of a point
           mass which has no structure whatsoever. It turns out
           that any spherical mass distribution produces the same
           gravity field above its surface as it would if all its
           mass were concentrated at the center (making a point
           mass there). This simplest possible gravity field obeys
           the familiar inverse square law, where the field
           strength decreases as the inverse square of the distance
           from the center. Since planets like Earth have almost
           spherical mass distributions, planetary gravity fields
           are very close to those of point masses.

           We now know that Eros is not at all close to spherical,
           so neither is its gravity field. Since there is no such
           thing as a gravitational dipole, the next simplest
           gravity field configuration is what we call a
           "quadrupole". The degree of distortion of the shape from
           spherical is measured by the "quadrupole moment" which
           is analogous to the dipole moment mentioned on April 7,
           but quadrupoles are more complicated than dipoles, and
           indeed they are too complicated to be described as
           ordinary vectors. There is more to a quadrupole than one
           magnitude and one direction, because there are many ways
           to distort a sphere by squashing it flatter or
           stretching it into a cigar shape (both of which are
           examples of quadrupoles).

           We have now encountered the three most basic
           configurations of fields - the familiar point mass field
           (also called a "monopole field"), the less familiar but
           still friendly dipole field, and now the quadrupole
           field. The monopole field decreases as the inverse
           square of the distance from the center; the dipole field
           decreases as the inverse cube as we saw on April 7; and
           the quadrupole field decreases as the inverse fourth
           power of the distance. Again, quadrupole fields have a
           characteristic angular dependence that is distinct from
           those of the dipole and the monopole fields (the latter
           is spherical).

           So the nonspherical shape of Eros distorts its gravity
           field, creating in the simplest case a quadrupole field
           because there is no gravitational dipole. This distorted
           field has a strength that decreases as the inverse
           fourth power of the distance, so it is most important
           close to the body. In the 100 km orbit around Eros, the
           quadrupole field is 16 times stronger than it is in a
           200 km orbit. Indeed, it is only in the 100 km orbit,
           where NEAR Shoemaker has spent the past week, that the
           quadrupole gravitational field of Eros is expected to
           become a major factor in disturbing the orbit.
           Previously, the effects of solar perturbations were more
           important (again, a story for another time).

           Our gravity investigators must separate out the effects
           of the nonspherical gravity field of Eros. To search for
           the possible presence of mass concentrations or voids,
           they need to examine not only the mass quadrupole but
           even more complicated configurations (or moments of
           "higher order" than the quadrupole). Likewise, the
           magnetic field investigation must search first for a
           dipole but then consider more complicated fields, such
           as a magnetic quadrupole field. However, we don't know
           if Eros has any magnetic field at all, and that is the
           primary issue for the magnetometer team. On the other
           hand, the real issue for our gravity investigators is
           not whether a nonspherical gravity field exists, but it
           is whether that field requires the presence of mass
           concentrations or voids. This will be investigated by
           comparing the mass quadrupole and higher order moments
           with the observed shape of Eros. Which team has the
           harder job? I don't know.

      Andrew Cheng
      NEAR Project Scientist

At 17.09 20/4/00 +0200, you wrote:
>Sorry for being offtopic:
>
>does someone know, why it is impossible to automatically redirect received
email from egroups.com with eudora?
>
>Andreas

Hi Andreas,

I don't know which version of Eudora you have. I have Eudora Light 3.0.1
and I've just checked that it is indeed possible to redirect a received
e-mail from egroups.com with such a version.

Genny.

+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+
|  Maria Eugenia Sansaturio        |  Phone #: +34 - 983 - 42 33 88  |
|  E.T.S. Ingenieros Industriales  |  Mobile#: +34 - 696 - 82 28 87  |
|  Paseo del Cauce s/n             |  Fax   #: +34 - 983 - 42 34 06  |
|  47011 Valladolid, SPAIN         |           +34 - 983 - 42 33 10  |
|----------------------------------+---------------------------------|
|                   http://wmatem.eis.uva.es/~marsan/                |
+----------------------------------+---------------------------------+

Sorry for being offtopic:

does someone know, why it is impossible to automatically redirect received email
from egroups.com with eudora?

Andreas

---------------------------------------------------------------------
ProMarkt Service GmbH & Co. KG
Kolonnenstraße 30f                               Tel. +49-30-78787647
D-10829 Berlin                                   Fax  +49-30-78787668
www.promarkt-service.de                   doppler@...

On Thu, 20 Apr 2000, David S. Dixon wrote:

> One of the objects on the list of 54 bright objects that Chris Wolf has been
following
> was 1998 SQ162.  I made an attempt at recovering 1998 SQ162 in late Feb. as a
result of
> an independent query to HOP.  I got an object at about the right magnitude a
couple hundred
> arc sec. from the nominal location predicted by Lowell.  The object turned out
not to be
> 1998 SQ162 and was designated K00D17W.  K00D17W now has 50 plus days of arc on
it and it
> is fairly certain it is not 1998 SQ162.  K00D17W has been observed a number of
times and
> the arc has been lengthened considerably by pre designation observations which
probably
> were from one or more of the surveys.  My question is how have we (everyone
including the
> surveys) managed to miss 1998 SQ162?  1998 SQ162 is a fairly bright object
well within
> the limit of most any 0.2m scope with ccd and close to 4 times brighter than
the survey
> limits.  The only thing that I see that might mitigate the recovery failure is
that the
> 52 day arc for 1998 SQ162 had fairly high residuals 1.47 arc sec. according to
MCPORB.
> Is this a case where the observations for this opposition are in the archive
but haven't
> been linked to the 1998 designation?

I suspect that a cause for the unrecovery of 1998 SQ162 is that its
orbit may be wrong.  The published observations of 1998 SQ162 cover
the dates 1998-09-26 and 27, 1998-11-10, 11 and 17.  The first four
nights' observations by LINEAR, the last night by LONEOS.  Given
the fairly high rms residual (1.47 arcsec) of the orbit published
on MPC 34305, it is possible that some of the observations don't
belong to 1998 SQ162.  If the orbit residuals support this (I cannot check
them now - can an orbit computer do?), it may be that the
1998 November observations are of another object, not 1998 SQ162.
At least the reported magnitude estimates suggest that it may be
the case: the November magnitude estimates (when reduced to unit geo- and
heliocentric distances and to zero phase angle) are on average brighter
by about 1.3 mag than the September ones.  LINEAR magnitude estimates have
a rms error of about 0.5 mag, so that the magnitude inconsistency is
only 2-sigma significant or so, but nevertheless suggest this possibility.

Petr Pravec

Ok (3360) was a bad example having only been observed at 2 oppositions
but for example (3456) has been well observed over 10 oppositions. I suppose
it depends on how recently the link was made to the original discovery. The
MPC page is helpful though.
Thanks
>From: Andreas Doppler <doppler@...>
>Reply-To: mpml@egroups.com
>To: mpml@egroups.com
>Subject: Re: {MPML} Minor Planet numbering
>Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2000 15:45:29 +0200
>
>
> >Can anyone tell me why some numbered minor planets are named almost
> >immediately, and others take several years? There are many low numbered
> >asteroids without names.(3360)(3397)(3445)etc.
>
>see http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/info/HowNamed.html
>
>Andreas
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>DANEOPS            DLR Archenhold Near Earth Objects Precovery Survey
>at Archenhold Observatory        at Starkenburg Observatory    at DLR
>A.Doppler, A.Gnadig              M.Busch, R.Stoss              G.Hahn
>URL http://earn.dlr.de/daneops/
>

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

--- In mpml@egroups.com, "Paul G. Comba" <comba@n...> wrote:
> Can anybody who uses a McIntosh refer me to an easy-to-use
> program to produce finder charts with asteroid positions?

try http://www.southernstars.com/skychart/index.html

Cheers,
Andreas

---------------------------------------------------------------------
DANEOPS            DLR Archenhold Near Earth Objects Precovery Survey
at Archenhold Observatory        at Starkenburg Observatory    at DLR
A.Doppler, A.Gnadig              M.Busch, R.Stoss              G.Hahn
URL http://earn.dlr.de/daneops/

>Can anyone tell me why some numbered minor planets are named almost
>immediately, and others take several years? There are many low numbered
>asteroids without names.(3360)(3397)(3445)etc.

see http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/info/HowNamed.html

Andreas

---------------------------------------------------------------------
DANEOPS            DLR Archenhold Near Earth Objects Precovery Survey
at Archenhold Observatory        at Starkenburg Observatory    at DLR
A.Doppler, A.Gnadig              M.Busch, R.Stoss              G.Hahn
URL http://earn.dlr.de/daneops/

>Would someone like me to start a SPAM discussion list on Egroups next?
>
>I wonder if anyone has any minor planet items they want to discuss here?
>
>
>--
>Richard Kowalski

Yes I have one for the group

One of the objects on the list of 54 bright objects that Chris Wolf has been
following
was 1998 SQ162.  I made an attempt at recovering 1998 SQ162 in late Feb. as a
result of
an independent query to HOP.  I got an object at about the right magnitude a
couple hundred
arc sec. from the nominal location predicted by Lowell.  The object turned out
not to be
1998 SQ162 and was designated K00D17W.  K00D17W now has 50 plus days of arc on
it and it
is fairly certain it is not 1998 SQ162.  K00D17W has been observed a number of
times and
the arc has been lengthened considerably by pre designation observations which
probably
were from one or more of the surveys.  My question is how have we (everyone
including the
surveys) managed to miss 1998 SQ162?  1998 SQ162 is a fairly bright object well
within
the limit of most any 0.2m scope with ccd and close to 4 times brighter than the
survey
limits.  The only thing that I see that might mitigate the recovery failure is
that the
52 day arc for 1998 SQ162 had fairly high residuals 1.47 arc sec. according to
MCPORB.
Is this a case where the observations for this opposition are in the archive but
haven't
been linked to the 1998 designation?

David Dixon

>I wonder if anyone has any minor planet items they want to discuss here?

Yes
Can anyone tell me why some numbered minor planets are named almost
immediately, and others take several years? There are many low numbered
asteroids without names.(3360)(3397)(3445)etc.
Matt


______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

Would someone like me to start a SPAM discussion list on Egroups next?

I wonder if anyone has any minor planet items they want to discuss here?


--
Richard Kowalski

I have examined the origin of the spam I have received lately:
all messages were coming through the bitnik.com address.
Moving the list seems to have stopped this.
Of course, it will take some time before I can automatically and
appropriately center my eye FOV to eliminate the few lines
of ad that are at the end of each mpml message but it does not
seem too bad so far.
M. Festou.

Hello,

I'm a moderator of another egroups list, and so far it looks good, with no SPAM.

Regards,

Cristovao Jacques
Wykrota Observatory - CEAMIG - 859
Belo Horizonte - MG - Brazil


Larry Denmark wrote:

> Brian Warner wrote:
>
> > Well, now that my e-mail's been given to eGroups, I've received more
> > unsolicited sales pitches in the past 12 hours than I have in the past two
> > weeks.
>
> Brian, if your trace the origin of the unsolicited spam you will most likely
see
> it linked back to bitnik.com.  I, too, have been on another egroup list with
> zero problems.
>
> Change is difficult.  Especially when one gets to be as old as me <g>.  Let's
> give this a chance and live with it for a few months.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Larry Denmark the Elder
> ----
> E-mail  ..... kldenmark@...
> Web site .. http://home.att.net/~kldenmark/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Enjoy the award-winning journalism of The New York Times with
> convenient home delivery.  And for a limited time, get 50% off for the
> first 8 weeks by subscribing.  Pay by credit card and receive an
> additional 4 weeks at this low introductory rate.
> http://click.egroups.com/1/3102/5/_/_/_/956232860/
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> MPML Home page: http://www.bitnik.com/mp
> MPML FAQ: http://www.bitnik.com/mp/MPML-FAQ.html
> MPML's Egroups page: http://www.egroups.com/group/mpml
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> mpml-unsubscribe@egroups.com

Brian Warner wrote:

> Well, now that my e-mail's been given to eGroups, I've received more
> unsolicited sales pitches in the past 12 hours than I have in the past two
> weeks.

Brian, if your trace the origin of the unsolicited spam you will most likely see
it linked back to bitnik.com.  I, too, have been on another egroup list with
zero problems.

Change is difficult.  Especially when one gets to be as old as me <g>.  Let's
give this a chance and live with it for a few months.

Cheers,

Larry Denmark the Elder
----
E-mail  ..... kldenmark@...
Web site .. http://home.att.net/~kldenmark/

Brian Warner wrote:
>
> Brian,
>
> >>
> Haven't seen anything like that from after a year on the 'amastro' list.
> <<
>
> Well, now that my e-mail's been given to eGroups, I've received more
> unsolicited sales pitches in the past 12 hours than I have in the past two
> weeks. The only newsgroup to which I subscribe is the MPML so I have to
> suspect my sudden good fortune of having to delete more than half my
> messages is related to the switch.
>
> Of course, if you read the eGroups definition of spam, it's deliberately
> nebulous such that messages from their advertisers are not considered to
> fall into that category.
>
> Clear Skies,
> Brian Warner

How many is more?  I have received only 1 message that might have been
generated by the e-mail listing.  I received 5 others but they were
identical to spam I receive almost every day so were not attributable to
e-mail.  Maybe off list we should compare notes and see if were are
receiving the same stuff?  (Have to keep it though :)
--
John Oliver

Can anybody who uses a McIntosh refer me to an easy-to-use
program to produce finder charts with asteroid positions?

Paul Comba
684 Prescott

At 01:32 AM 4/20/00 -0400, Brian Warner wrote:
>Skiff wrote:

>>Haven't seen anything like that from after a year on the 'amastro' list.

As a listowner for 4 egroups lists and a member of three others, I can
chime in that this hasn't happened to people on my AmAstro, SolNet, BICCD,
or HACList mailing lists, nor have I been victimized on the three other
forums I am on (EOS [for Canon SLR owners], ALPOStaff, and MPML). My wife,
who is on some veterinary medicine forums there, has enjoyed a similar
freedom from maltreatment by egroups.

>Well, now that my e-mail's been given to eGroups, I've received more
>unsolicited sales pitches in the past 12 hours than I have in the past two
>weeks.

That sounds like what happens here every time a spammer exploits the
bitnik.com domain. That happened quite recently, which is why Gordon and
others complained about the recent flood of spam. That flood and the
resulting complaints is part of what inspired the move to egroups. A flood
of new spam is not what I experience every time I join a new egroups list.

>The only newsgroup to which I subscribe is the MPML so I have to
>suspect my sudden good fortune of having to delete more than half my
>messages is related to the switch.

If you can prove your suspicion is correct, I'll move all my lists off
egroups.

But it doesn't make a good deal of sense; the egroups revenue model is
predicated on keeping your address secret and preventing you from getting
spammed. If they gave your address to everyone who came around, or had such
lax security that their databases could be exploited by anyone and
everyone, then no-one would pay for their banner space.

For what it is worth, I have never seen a single piece of spam go out over
an e-groups list I own.

>Of course, if you read the eGroups definition of spam, it's deliberately
>nebulous such that messages from their advertisers are not considered to
>fall into that category.

There is nothing nebulous about egroups' definition of spam.

They provide free list hosting, and make their money with a four line
signature advertizement, the space for which they sell to legitimate
companies who are not spammers. If the listowner does not want to have the
ad, he or she may pay a hosting fee.

Spam by the egroups definition is unwanted commercial e-mail. After having
received thousands of messages through various egroups forums, I have never
seen an example of spam that I could trace back to egroups.com (or to
onelist.com, with whom they have merged). Nor do I have any indication that
my e-mail address was "sold" to anyone. Nor do I have any reason to believe
it has been compromised in any way. No need to look for conspiracies here -
egroups is a good company with a long track record of excellent service.

OTOH, bitnik.com sends me unwanted bounce messages every time I post to the
list (mostly from academic mailboxes that are checked so infrequently that
they have filled up), and routinely subjects me to a hosing down of "Lose
Weight Fast" spam which is not what I need, weighing all of 130 pounds.


--
Jeff Medkeff
Hereford, Arizona
Have Laptop, Will Travel

Brian,

>>
Haven't seen anything like that from after a year on the 'amastro' list.
<<

Well, now that my e-mail's been given to eGroups, I've received more
unsolicited sales pitches in the past 12 hours than I have in the past two
weeks. The only newsgroup to which I subscribe is the MPML so I have to
suspect my sudden good fortune of having to delete more than half my
messages is related to the switch.

Of course, if you read the eGroups definition of spam, it's deliberately
nebulous such that messages from their advertisers are not considered to
fall into that category.


Clear Skies,
Brian Warner
716 Palmer Divide Observatory
Colorado Springs, CO
http://www.MinorPlanetObserver.com

Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link (CALL)
http://www.MinorPlanetObserver.com/astlc/default.htm

Haven't seen anything like that from after a year on the 'amastro' list.

\Brian

Brian,

Did you take a look at the privacy statement? It says that your information
can and will be given to third parties and so you may receive "occasional"
special offers and asked to take part in polls. Sounds like spam to me...


Clear Skies,
Brian Warner
716 Palmer Divide Observatory
Colorado Springs, CO
http://www.MinorPlanetObserver.com

Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link (CALL)
http://www.MinorPlanetObserver.com/astlc/default.htm

My experience on another list has been that the extent of the intrusion
is the four-line "advertisement" at the bottom of the posts.  Since this ad
is less than half the length of the routing garbage that appears at the
top of the message no matter what its source, it is easy to ignore.

\Brian

I was sent this privately, but I answer publically in case some of you are not
sure.

>
> Richard,
>
> What is not clear is if we have to visit the web site to see messages or if
> we will continue to get them as e-mail. If the web site, it's a lot slower
> for me because of all the advertising graphics and my slow lines at home.
> Always somebody bitchin' <G>

You will continue to get email posts as you always have.

I believe Egroups,com "makes" their money by people visiting their website. This
is NOT something you have to do unless you want to change your profile or if you
want to get each message or a digest.

--
Richard Kowalski