For those of us who do orbital mechanics for a living, UT, UTC and GMT is
just the beginning... But you don't need to know any of those things to
discover a comet, make a new observation on a variable star, discover a new
supernova, etc. Let's not degrade other people because making time
conversions makes you irritable...

--

Clear Skies,

Chuck

"MikeThomas" wrote in message
news:6bqTc.20328$fz2.3652@edtnps89...
It should be quite clear to anyone in astronomy by now that UT or UTC or
GMT
is Universal Time. Those who don't have any concept of this designation
should
really consider just what level of amateur they really are. Astronomical
observing
is completely dependent on timing. It is just easier if people report
observations of any kind
in UTC. People should know what their local offset is whether it is
Daylight or standard, PDT, MST, MDT,EDT,Europe, China or Antartica!!

For one thing, to do a polar alignment, you have to know your local time
meridian offset and whether you
are east or west of it.