What are NOVAC Member Groups?

NOVAC uses Google Groups for email and web discussions. Google Groups functions both as a forum-like website and an email discussion list server. The NOVAC Members group is the club’s primary collaboration discussion group and how club sends you announcements and event information. Message content should be related to astronomy education and observing and NOVAC activities.

Members may occasionally post short messages offering to give, trade or sell  personally owned astronomy related equipment to other NOVAC members.  Postings offering to sell other people’s equipment or directing NOVAC members to contact other individuals with equipment to sell are not allowed and will be deleted.

The NOVAC Members group is our primary discussion and announcement platform. It’s how we share club news, event updates, and collaborate on astronomy-related topics.

Member Group Guidelines:

  • Content should focus on astronomy education, observing, and NOVAC activities. Please no political postings!
  • Donating or trading equipment with other members is encouraged!  Sales posts must be occasional, non-commercial, and secondary to the group’s educational purpose. Repeated or business-like sales may be removed. Posts offering to sell items for others or directing members to contact others with equipment for sale are not permitted and will be deleted.
  • Member sales are private transactions between individuals. NOVAC does not sell, broker, endorse, or receive compensation from these transactions and assumes no responsibility for payment, condition of items, or tax obligations.

Thank you for helping keep our groups focused and relevant to NOVAC’s mission.

You can post messages to the NOVAC Members group at this email address: members@m.novac.com  Your message will be forwarded to over 900 NOVAC members.  If your message isn’t of general interest to the entire club membership please consider using the SIGS below to communicate.  Copies of postings you make are not sent to you. Use this link https://groups.google.com if you want to connect to a group to verify that your posting occurred.

NOVAC also maintains several Special Interest Groups (SIGS) that you should use for astronomy related posts for these topics:

NOVAC’s Special Interest Groups (SIGS):

NOVAC Astro Travelers – https://groups.google.com/a/m.novac.com/g/travelers email posts to: travelers@m.novac.com

NOVAC Electronically Assisted Astronomers – https://groups.google.com/a/m.novac.com/g/novaceaa email posts to: novaceaa@m.novac.com This group meets for lunch at 11:30 am the 2nd Wednesday of each month at Open Road, Merrifield, 8100 Lee Hwy, Falls Church VA 22042

NOVAC Imagers – https://groups.google.com/a/m.novac.com/g/novacimagers email posts to: novacimagers@m.novac.com

NOVAC also has a group for members of the NOVAC VA State Park dark skies volunteers (Sky Meadows and Sweet Run parks). Click here to go to the Sky Meadows observing site page for instructions on how to join this volunteer partnership with these two VA state parks.

How do I join a NOVAC group?

If you wish to join any of these member groups, send an email to sigs@m.novac.com stating the group(s) names you wish to join. You will receive an email invitation within a day or two. We are happy to set up additional discussion groups for specific topics that will be of interest to groups of NOVAC members.

How do I manage my group subscription or unsubscribe?

To immediately change your subscription (e.g. to switch to daily digest messages, emails or no emails), sign on to Google’s web interface at groups.google.com using the same email address that you have set in your https://novac.com Member Profile. Pease do not unsubscribe from the MEMBERS group, select NO Email instead. You can also send an email to sigs@m.novac.com requesting the change you wish to make. Email requests will usually be processed in a day or two.

Do I need to use a Google account?

To use the web interface, you must log in to a Google account associated with the same email address you have in your NOVAC.com profile. You do NOT need to have a Gmail account specifically – you can create a Google account associated with your non-google external email address following the instructions on this web page: https://accounts.google.com/SignUpWithoutGmail.