IAU Minor Planet Center

MPEC 1998-P24: EDITORIAL NOTICE

Read MPEC 1998-P23 Read MPEC 1998-Q01

M.P.E.C. 1998-P24                                Issued 1998 Aug. 15, 18:04 UT

     The Minor Planet Electronic Circulars contain information on unusual
         minor planets and routine data on comets.  They are published
   on behalf of Commission 20 of the International Astronomical Union by the
          Minor Planet Center, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory,
                          Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.

             BMARSDEN@CFA.HARVARD.EDU or GWILLIAMS@CFA.HARVARD.EDU
                   URL http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/mpc.html

                               EDITORIAL NOTICE

SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM...
     The amount of junk e-mail ("spam") arriving at the Harvard-Smithsonian
Center for Astrophysics has increased tremendously over the past year.  In
order to try and reduce the amount of spam received by CfA computer users,
the Computation Facility (CF) has recently instituted a policy of rejecting
*all* e-mail that originates from certain Internet domains.  The CF did not
inform the CfA that they were doing this until yesterday.  Among the domains
that are currently being blocked are several known to be used by active
astrometric observers:

     compuserve.com
     ix.netcom.com
     worldnet.att.net

If you are on a machine on any of these domains, you should send observations
to brian@cfaps1.harvard.edu and/or gareth@cfaps1.harvard.edu until such time
as your domain is removed from the CF's black list.  The CF's black list is
subject to frequent change, but it would be remiss of us to give the complete
list here.  You might also wish to complain to your domain's postmaster,
urging them to stop the spammers.

     Of course, this domain blocking also affects all other e-mail addresses
of the form someone@cfa.harvard.edu.  Subscription enquiries from the
affected domains should be sent to iausubs@cfaps1.harvard.edu until the
problems are resolved.

     We apologise for this inconvenience, which is completely beyond our
control.  We have protested to the CF, but our protests are currently falling
on deaf ears.


E-MAIL DELIVERY OPTIONS FOR IAUCs AND MPECs
     As a result of upgrading the software that produces the mailing lists
for the IAU Circulars and Minor Planet Electronic Circulars, subscribers can
now request that the two series of circulars be sent to different e-mail
addresses.  Requests should be sent to iausubs@cfa.harvard.edu (or
iausubs@cfaps1.harvard.edu, as noted above), giving both e-mail addresses
and your account number.

     Recognizing that some subscribers may not be interested in receiving
the Daily Orbit Update MPECs, we note that the software upgrades also
include the ability to suppress these circulars.  E-mail delivery of other
MPECs will be unaffected.  Requests for suppression should be sent as above.

     Note that these options are available only to those subscribers with
personal subscriptions.  Those who receive their circulars via an
institutional mailing list will have contact their local list maintainer to
see whether their local setup allows these enhancements.


MINOR PLANET EPHEMERIS SERVICE
     The Minor Planet Center has recently unveiled a major new Web-based
service to facilitate the generation of ephemerides for currently
observable minor planets.  The Minor Planet Ephemeris Service (MPES) is
at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/MPEph/MPEph.html.  The MPES serves
three purposes:

  1. The generation of customisable ephemerides for user-specified objects.

  2. The generation of a summary detailing the current location of
     a set of user-specified objects.

  3. The generation of an HTML document that can be placed on your own
     website and that allows others to generate ephemerides for a set
     of objects chosen by you, such as your own personal discoveries.

A collection of links to such follow-up pages is available at
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/MPEph/FollowUp.html.  Additional sites
for inclusion on this list should be reported to the MPC.


NEO CONFIRMATION PAGE
     In recent months the NEO Confirmation Page (NEOCP,
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/NEO/ToConfirm.html) has undergone several
enhancements.  In addition to having been made more flexible, the NEOCP
now allows access to ephemerides for newly discovered comets in the
period between the acquistion of the first astrometry and the publication
of the first orbit.


MINOR PLANET MAILING LIST
     A recently inaugurated mailing list, the Minor Planet Mailing List,
has been set up to facilitate informal discussions amongst astrometrists,
both amateur and professional.  All requests for information on this
mailing list should be directed to Richard Kowalski (bitnik@bitnik.com).


Gareth V. Williams           (C) Copyright 1998 MPC           M.P.E.C. 1998-P

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Read MPEC 1998-P23 Read MPEC 1998-Q01

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