Guide 8 information

  • Schedule
  • What the new version offers
  • Ordering a copy
  • Upgrading from a previous version
  • What to do with the old disk
  • Upgrading from older versions

    • Schedule: Guide 8 started shipping in mid-February.

    So far, I've sent out upgrade offers only by e-mail. This caused a large backlog of orders, which is now clearing; I should be sending out upgrade offers via postal mail soon. If you are eligible for an upgrade and didn't get an e-mailed upgrade offer, please contact me. It probably means I have no e-mail address for you, or an outdated one.

    What the new version offers: The software for the new version is really not too much different from the current Guide 7 software on the Web site, and you may want to look at this to see assorted nifty features mentioned under that subject, just below the links to the update files themselves. By itself, this represents quite a leap over the "original" Guide 7 software.

    However, the data is a tremendous leap forward from what Guide 7 had to offer. For Guide 8, I decided the time had come to move to a two-CD-ROM product. (Click here for comments as to why it's not a DVD version.) Those wondering how the two CDs will work should click here.

    Having 1.3 GBytes of data instead of a mere 650 MBytes allowed several improvements:

  • The "original" Tycho-1 data, used in Guide 6.0 and 7.0, has been updated; Guide 8.0 uses the new Tycho-2 catalogue. This provides data for about 2.5 times as many stars as Tycho-1, and of better quality (smaller error bars). Several other datasets will be updated; for example, the LEDA/PGC database of galaxies has passed the 190,000 object mark, with many errors corrected. It also contains full support for the NGC-IC data, which is an immense improvement in accuracy over previous NGC and IC databases.
  • The second CD-ROM includes a catalogue of over one million galaxies. This is somewhat more than most people will ever want to use, and the data provided for these galaxies is usually nothing more than a position, major and minor axes, and a position angle. Still, it does have its uses, such as in resolving clusters of galaxies.
  • Guide 8 uses GSC-ACT, in place of the "original" GSC 1.1, for higher astrometric accuracy.
  • The second CD contains DSS (Digital Sky Survey) images of plenty of deep-sky objects, which are be shown in the background of charts (same method as used currently). The quality of these is considerably greater than that of RealSky. The second disk also provides plenty of datasets that did not fit onto the first CD-ROM, plus a high-resolution lunar image created from Clementine data. The new image is immensely more detailed; to see this, click here for a "before" image of the Clavius region, created using the bitmap provided with Guides 6 and 7. Compare it to an "after" image of the same region created with the new data.

    • (Please note that the above comparison shows a more dramatic improvement than you will normally see. In more equatorial regions, the Clementine data tends to look somewhat washed out, with no real shadow relief. But overall, it is a lot better than the previously-available data.)

  • One major reason Guide 8 was so late was that I kept wanting to add Just One More Feature before shipping it. I eventually decided I would absolutely have to ship it no matter what, but compromised to the extent of putting certain files for "future use" on the CDs. For example, there is a subsection of the JPL DE-406 ephemeris in there; this will allow Guide to compute planetary positions to absurdly great accuracy, and (more importantly) make it likely that Guide can numerically integrate asteroids, comets, and spacecraft. There's also a current file of binary star orbital elements, which could allow Guide to show binary stars with their correct orientation/separation. Animate this, and you could watch as they orbit one another. Also, there are files for spacecraft orbital elements, a dataset of two million terrestrial place names, and tide data.

    • True, the software uses none of these right now. But you may have noticed that Guide 7 was updated frequently, and may assume the same will be true for Guide 8.

  • In fact, a few improvements have already been made. Click here for the latest updates to Guide 8.

  • With the move to two CD-ROMs, having Guide run from the hard drive in a flexible manner became much more important. With the new version, you start out running Guide "normally", with the first CD required to be in the CD-ROM drive, just as with Guide 7. You can then install part or all of that CD to the hard drive. If you install all of it, you can remove the first CD and forget about it. If you install part of it, you can still remove it, but when you do so, you will lose features related to the uninstalled part. (So far, all of this is also true for the current Guide 7 software; click here for details.)

    If you've installed part or all of the first Guide 8 disk to the hard drive, you can pop it out, put in disk #2, and see features made available by the data on that disk. You can then install part or all of disk #2. So you can go anywhere from the "default install" of about 10 MBytes up to a "total install" of both CD-ROMs, for about 1300 MBytes.

  • In all cases, this is done dynamically. If you start Guide up and it looks at the CD drive and finds no CD (or a non-Guide CD), it won't complain; it simply follows the advice of Theodore Roosevelt: "Do what you can with what you have, where you are."

    • Ordering a copy: If you have previously ordered an earlier version of Guide, you are eligible for a discount; see below for details.

    Otherwise, you can purchase a copy for US $89, with no shipping charge in the US and Canada, and a $3 shipping fee for everywhere else in the world. Complete details on how to order (payment methods, etc.) are provided on the order form.

    Upgrading: As mentioned above, I've sent out upgrade offers only by e-mail thus far. I should be sending out upgrade offers via postal mail soon.

    Anyone who has purchased a copy of Guide in the past can upgrade to Guide 8.0 for US $30 (includes shipping/handling anywhere in the world). It does not matter which version you ordered; you could, in theory, upgrade from Guide 1.0 to Guide 8.0 for $30.

    Payment can be by MasterCard, VISA, cash, check drawn on a US bank, or money order. Once it is actually shipped, you will get a short note by e-mail.

    Upgrade order form: Unfortunately, there is no secure order form set up. You can order via e-mail, fax, telephone, or postal mail. The upgrade offer gives the contact data.

    What to do with the old disk: I try to discourage people from passing older disks on to their friends and neighbors. If you insist on doing so, please at least show them Guide 8 so they may be persuaded they need to buy their own copy of the current software.

    I would ask, though, that you pass the older disk and manual on to a school or astronomy club or similar non-profit organization. Schools generally have absurdly tight budgets, and you may help to indoctrinate the next generation of astronomers. Or at least the next generation of Guide customers.

    Upgrading from 6.0 and older versions: As is mentioned above, you can upgrade from any previous version for $30. If you had ordered Guide 1.0 when it came out back in 1993 and had not upgraded since then, you could now upgrade to 8.0 for $30.

    Over a million galaxies: The people at the LEDA project at the Université de Lyon have provided immense galaxy catalogues for about a decade now, in particular various versions of the Principal Galaxy Catalogue (PGC). This has grown from roughly 70,000 galaxies in the version provided in 1992, to the 169,000 galaxy version in late 1998 that is used as the basis of galaxy display in Guide 7.0.

    As can be seen at the above link, the catalogue has grown further, to over 193,000 objects; and a new catalogue of nearly 1.1 million galaxies is in progress. Both catalogues can be used in Guide 8.0. By default, the smaller catalog (which provides more detailed data) is in use; the million-object catalog is available on the second disk.

    To give a sense of what the million-object catalog is like, you can see a piece of it (for the M-95 area) in Guide 7. To do this, download this PGC.ZIP file (about 67 KBytes) into your Guide directory, and unZIP it. You will have a new user-added dataset, "PGC data"; I downloaded data for a 3-degree by 3-degree area around M-95 as an example. Zoom into the M-95 region, and you'll see the "new PGC" objects.

    In truth, the fact that this catalogue contains over a million objects is only moderately impressive (though it is nice, I think, to see individual members of many galaxy clusters.) What is more interesting to me is that many errors have been corrected. If you turn Guide 7's built-in galaxies on (which are based on the 1998 version of PGC), and show the 'new' PGC in a different color from the old, then the fact that many galaxies have been shifted becomes quite obvious. (Most of these changes are also reflected in the new PGC used in Guide 8.) Load in DSS images to the background, and the fact that those shifts were sorely needed also becomes obvious.

    Why isn't Guide 8 on a DVD? I was sorely tempted to take that move, for a variety of reasons. Both CD-ROMs are jammed to capacity, 1.3 GBytes, and I had still more things I wanted to add to the disks. The thought of having 5.2 GBytes with which to play is enough to cause any programmer of astronomical software to drool.

    I didn't make that move, in part because I originally expected to get this software out about a year ago (!). At that time, DVD was much rarer than it is today. As of now (January 2002), they're cheap enough that some people lacking them might well purchase them simply so that they could use Guide 8 (or 9). It's quite likely that Guide 9 will be provided on DVD.