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In addition to the Telegram Index on the web, readers may request a Daily Email Digest (see Email Options ). Readers select those subject areas of interest, and Telegrams marked with those subject headings will be mailed to them after each 24-hr period (no email will be sent if no such Telegrams are received). Readers may also request the Instant Email Notices, used to report the discovery, with coordinates, of one of several different types of objects, as well as new outbursts of previously known transients. The Instant Email Notices are sent immediately (within a few seconds) upon receipt.
Reports submitted to The Astronomer's Telegram are not filtered or edited: the final editing on all submissions is made by the author. Submissions are posted onto the web instantly, by software.
All reports are citeable, and referenced for fast retreival at the NASA/ADS Abstract Service.
The posting of a Telegram implies the permission of the authors to reproduce and re-distribute its contents electronically, either in whole or in part, when such reproduction or re-distribution does not alter the substantive meaning of the Telegram, and when such reproduction or re-distribution does not exclusively serve a commercial purpose. This does not suspend the ethical requirement of correct citation. The copyright for each Telegram remains the property of the authors. By posting a Telegram, the authors grant non-exclusive royalty-free license to archive and redistribute the Telegram in electronic form for the life of the copyright to The Astronomer's Telegram.
Editors exercise no control over content. The authors are responsible for the content of their Telegrams.
In using The Astronomer's Telegram, all are expected to adhere to commonly accepted standards of professional conduct. Behavior which is to be avoided includes sabotage of software, hardware, or contents of The Astronomer's Telegram ; failure to exercise professional decorum in the content of a Telegram; or purposeful inclusion of fraudulent content in a Telegram. Users who do not adhere to these standards of use may have their access to this site restricted.
Previously, the editor would post information sent to him, which
was of an urgent nature, with the author as "Editor". This practice
has been discontinued. All such information must now be posted by the
originating author.
Telegrams are submitted with the web interface , where
you may also see how your Telegram will look on the website before
posting. The Telegram may be authored by anyone; however, all
telegrams must be verified by someone's username+password.
Authors reporting discoveries of supernovae or comets are strongly
encouraged to also report these to the Central Bureau of Astronomical
Telegrams (CBAT), which is the body designated under Commission 6 of
the International Astronomical Union which designates the discoverer
of supernovae and comets. The Astronomer's Telegram is not affiliated
with CBAT.
Becuase of the potential for misuse of the Instant Email Notices
and the subsequent annoyance of observers who use these to keep
vigilant watch for new, observable objects, users are cautioned to pay
strict attention to the requirement of using them only for
distributing new coordinates. Users who use the Instant Email Notices
for other than this purpose will receive a cautionary warning.
Repeated misuse will result in the suspension of the authenticating
password, until it is clear that the misunderstanding has been
rectified.
There are no charges for posting or reading any of the telegrams,
nor are there charges for any use of any of the facilities. Making
ATEL available free of charge is a design specification, and motivates
its operational methods.
To search Telegrams for specific content, the option Index Display Options
(at the top of the Index page) permits several options to do so
(including a date filter, and a keyword search in the text and author
listing). For example, you may not be interested in Telegrams more
than 1 month old, so you can set your defaults on the Refine
Selection page so that they do not appear on your Index.
Authors are responsible for the content of their telegrams.
Should the authors discover an error after posting, the authors must
make another submission, providing the correction.
Submitting a Telegram
Contents of a Telegram
Telegrams are for reporting or commenting upon new astronomical
observations. Content is limited to 4000 characters. HTML formatting
is encouraged, although we restrict some tags (see
HTML ).
Format of a Telegram
Telegrams must be in HTML formatted text, and written in English.
Other formats (such as postscript, LaTeX, Tex, Word) are not
permitted. Some HTML tags are not permitted
(the message checker will tell you if you have included any which are
not permitted).
Daily Email Digest
Upon signing up for the Digest (on our
Email Options form), the reader selects from among the available
subjects. Once a day, the reader will be sent the complete contents
of all those Telegrams which were posted with any of the selected
subjects. If no such telegrams were posted, no email will be sent.
Also, Telegrams sent previously as Instant Email
Notices are only distributed in the Daily Email Digest to you if
you have not already received it.
Instant Email Notices
Readers may also request (on our Email Options form) various
topics for Instant Email Notices. These are sent out immediately on
posting of the Telegram, when the author has requested it. Authors
are instructed to only request Instant Email Notices when they are
reporting new coordinates, or a new outburst of a transient object.
"New Coordinates" includes both the coordinates of a newly discovered
object, or a smaller error box for a previously known object (for
example, an optical transient associated with a gamma-ray burst).
"New Coordinates" are always the result of more precise observations,
and not the result of a re-interpretation of previous observations and
reclassification of an object.
Charges
Producing a Telegram Index
Correcting Errors After a Telegram is Submitted
Authors (Affil.)
This should be the complete list of authors, and their institutional
affiliations. While collaboration names can be used, please note
that using exclusively a collaboration name makes bibliographic
searches more difficult (we list all publications on the NASA/ADS
Abstract service), so we recommend appending at least one author
name. Examples:
I. Newton (Cambridge), M. Planck (MPA)
E. Hubble, on behalf of the Full-Sky Optical Survey Team (Palomar)
Email address
A valid email address where readers might send queries to the
authors.
Telegram Title
A descriptive and brief title. Example:
New Outburst of GRO J1744-28
Wavebands
Select all wavebands which are relevant to the content of the
Telegram. This is one of two filters which will be used by readers to
find your Telegram (the other is Objects), so it is important to be
accurate.
Objects
Select all Object-types relevant to the content of the telegram.
This is one of two filters which will be used by readers to find your
telegram (the other is Wavebands), so it is important to be accurate.
Text
The text must be < 4000 characters in length. Many (but not all) HTML
tags are permitted. (See HTML ).
Auto-linking to other Astronomer's Telegrams, IAU
Circulars, and Gamma-Ray Burst Coordinate Network (GCN) Circulars (ATEL #N, IAUC #N, GCN #N)
If you include in your message the text: ATEL #25 (for example), a
link to the appropriate Telegram will be placed automatically (so you
do not have to do this yourself). The same is true for IAU Circulars,
for which the proper form is: IAUC #6723. You also link to Gamma-ray
Burst Coordinate Network (GCN) Circulars the same way: GCN #114. If
you have multiple references, each number must be immediately
preceeded (with no intervening spaces) by the "#" symbol, such as:
ATEL #23, #24, #25, and #26; or IAUC #6730, #6820, and #6821; but not
IAUC # 4242 (no the intervening space). The following is a valid list
of references, which will be auto-linked: (ATEL #22, #23; IAUC #6004,
#6005; GCN #200, #202).
HTML in Text
We permit many tags to be used in text. Those which we do not permit
are APPLET, FRAME, HR, IMG, and META. These
restrictions are in place so that the information content of the
Telegram does not change after posting, and so that the Telegram
documents are identical in layout. We may add other HTML tags to this
list in the future, and we may remove some; this depends partially on
whether researchers report that their postings are being adversely
affected in clarity or content. Note that you may use the "anchor" tag
A so that you can directly include links to other sites
(such as your own) which may contain additional information.
Optional Link URL
This link will be placed at the bottom of your Telegram, as a
highlight. You may use it to direct readers to a website, or to
provide them with a figure. Links may be included directly in the
body of text, so this is an option largely aesthetic purposes.
Optional Link Title
A brief, descriptive title which describes the contents of the link.
Example:
V-Band Finder's Chart for GRB970828
Table of Ephemeris for 1997 QK1
Username and Password
To insure the identity of the author, the text must be submitted with
an accepted Username+Password. These may be submitted at this website .
PGP (Pretty Good Privacy)
What is PGP?
PGP stands for "Pretty Good Privacy". It is a freely available
electronic document signing and encryption program. The program is
available at:
More information about PGP can be obtained at PGP, Inc..What is a digital signature?
A digital signature, when made with PGP, takes the text which is
signed and runs it through an encryption algorithm, which requires a
secret key owned by the signator. What this produces is the orginal
text along with the "signature", which could be produced only by a
combination of the text and the signator's secret key. The text and
the signature are distributed together. Anyone with a copy of the
signator's public (not secret) key, may verify the text; if only one
character in the text is changed, the signature will not verify.
Why use a digital signature on text,
instead of the easier to use username+password?
Digital Signatures ensure that the information has not been changed
since it left the author's computer. You can verify the signature
yourself. With a copy of the author's key (which we also distribute in
the public PGP keyring), the PGP program will verify that no changes
have been made to the text since the author's signature was affixed.
This level of certainty is valuable: you can be sure that no one in
between you and the author changed the text: it is just as good as if
you heard the author read it with his or her own voice.
Does everyone need a PGP Key or a username and password to submit a Telegram?
No. While Telegrams may be signed by accepted PGP keys or username
and password, these do not necessarily have to be yours. They could
belong to anyone. Thus, for example, there could be one PGP key used
by your department, to sign all text. However, if you want to, you
can always obtain your own key or Username+Password, and submit
your text on your own.
How is a PGP Key to be submitted?
Submit the key from our
Key Submission Form . It may take up to 7 days for the Editor to
verify both your identity and institutional affiliation, after which
you will be contacted that your key has been accepted, and you may
then post Telegrams. If you do not have a forms-capabable browser,
you may send your key by email, along with a phone number and
institutional affiliation to
R. Rutledge .
When do I use the PGP Key?
If you wish, you can sign your ASCII text with your (accepted) PGP
key, instead of using a Username+Password. This offers extra
security, to those who would like to use it.