List of Astronomy Acronyms - F

F

• FAME – (telescope) Full-sky Astrometric Mapping Explorer
• FASTT – (telescope) Flagstaff Astrometric Scanning Transit Telescope
• FCC – (catalog) Fornax Cluster Catalog, a catalog of galaxies in the Fornax Cluster
• FEB – (celestial object) Falling-Evaporating Body, a solid planetary object that is being evaporated by the stellar wind
• FGS – (instrumentation) Fine Guidance Sensors, an instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope
• FHST – (instrumentation) Fixed Head Star Trackers, an instrument on the Hubble Space Telescope
• FIR – (astrophysics terminology) Far InfraRed
• FIRST – (observing program) Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-centimeters, a radio survey of the sky with the Very Large Array
• FIRST – (telescope) Far InfraRed and Submillimeter Space Telescope, an older name for the Herschel Space Observatory
• FIRAS – (Instrumentation) Far-InfraRed Absolute Spectrophotometer
• FITS – (software) Flexible Image Transport System, the format commonly used for scientific astronomy images
• FLAMES – (instrumentation) Fibre Large Array Multi Element Spectrograph, instrument on the VLT
• FLOAT – (telescope) Fibre-Linked Optical Array Telescope
• FLWO – (telescope) Fred L. Whipple Observatory
• FMO – (celestial object) Fast Moving Object, an asteroid so close to the Earth that it appears to be moving very fast
• FOC – (instrumentation) Faint Object Camera, a camera formerly on the Hubble Space Telescope
• FOCAS – (instrumentation) Faint Object Camera And Spectrograph, an instrument for the Subaru Telescope
• FOS – (instrumentation) Faint Object Spectrograph, a spectrometer formerly on the Hubble Space Telescope
• FOV – (instrumentation) Field Of View
• FRED – (astrophysics terminology) Fast Rise Exponential Decay, the variations in the luminosity of gamma ray bursts over time
• FSC – (catalog) Faint Source Catalogue, one of the catalogs produced using Infrared Astronomical Satellite data
• FTL – (astrophysics terminology) Faster Than Light
• FUOR – (celestial object) FU Orionis objects, a class of variable pre–main sequence stars named after FU Orionis, the archetype for the class
  • also FU
• FUSE – (telescope) Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer, an ultraviolet space telescope
• FUVITA – (instrumentation) Far UltraViolet Imaging Telescope Array, an ultraviolet imager for the Spectrum-Roentgen-Gamma mission
• FWHM – (instrumentation) Full Width at Half Maximum, a telescope resolution
• FWZI – (instrumentation) Full Width at Zero Intensity, a telescopes resolution