So, you're interested in writing for the S*T*A*R Spectrogram, eh? Here's some guidelines for producing an article. If you need more information, or would like to talk to me about an idea, drop me a line at mikel@att.net or corner me at the next meeting (Dan or Penny can point me out if you don't know who I am - you can't go to a meeting without finding out who Dan and Penny are).

• Articles should be about something astronomy related, and of interest to club members.
• All material used becomes copyright you, the author. Publishing in the newsletter does not preclude you from publishing later in another publication.
• If you have an article from somewhere that you'd like to see reprinted in the Spectrogram for other club members, please get written permission from the author or publisher before asking me to print it.
• If you have an article idea, but don't feel you are a good enough writer, don't worry. I'm happy to help with wording, style, grammar, spelling - that's what an editor is for.
• If your article needs diagrams, but you don't feel you are a good artist, don't worry. I can help you produce nice looking diagrams and graphics. A description of what you want to produce, or a hand drawn sketch is fine.
• Please try to keep articles short and to the point. We can only squeeze in about 4000 words total per issue.
• I can't guarantee that your article will appear in a particular issue. If your article is timely (e.g. no sense publishing an article about the coming Leonids in December), I'll do my best. To publish an article in a particular issue, I need to get it by the beginning of the previouis month (e.g. to get in the November issue, I'd need to have the article by the beginning of October).
• I reserve the right to edit article submissions as needed for space and other considerations of the newsletter.
• The easiest way (i.e. easiest for me) to submit articles is via e-mail to mikel@att.net. I can accept documents in almost any format, but since the text will have to be typeset to fit the newsletter anyway, the easiest for me is plain old ASCII text.
• The easiest way to submit diagrams/pictures for the Spectrogram is to e-mail me a GIF file. I can accept images in almost any format, and can take care of scaling, cropping, etc.
• In case you're wondering, the newsletter is done in Applix Word for Linux. The file is printed, and also converted to HTML for the on-line version. The resulting HTML is then ``tweaked'' using the Vim editor.
• Simple diagrams are better than pictures, as we can't print the paper newsletter in color. Halftone images (like photos, with gray as well as black and white) don't copy well, but I'm willing to try. For the on-line version of the newsletter, anything goes.