Previous page Page 14 Next page Table of Contents
coordinates, you would need to set the epoch to B1950 (or whatever the author's choice). 6: GETTING INFORMATION ABOUT OBJECTS What Guide shows you on the chart is a fraction of what it knows about the objects in the chart. Since Guide can't show everything at once, you get extra data about most objects by clicking on them with the right mouse button. This gives you a quick summary of important data about the object: its name, catalog number(s), rise/set times, and so forth. You can then ask for "more info" about the object, including everything Guide knows about it. You can also export that information to an ASCII file, for use in a word processor or other software, or simply print it directly. For example, suppose you centered on the star Acubens. (You could do this by clicking on "Go to", then "Star", then "Common Name", and finally on the name "Acubens"; or just hitting Ctrl-B and entering "alp cnc" or "Acubens".) Click on Acubens with the RIGHT mouse button. A dialogue box will pop up in the center of the screen. It tells you that this star is called Acubens, or Sertan; that it has Bayer letter Alpha, Flamsteed number 65, in the constellation Cancer. It gives some rise/set times, its number in several catalogs, and its magnitude. ("Magnitude", or brightness level, is discussed on page 79.) Finally, four buttons are shown, labelled "OK", "More Info", "Next", and "Display". Click on the "OK" button and the information will vanish. Click on "Next" and Guide will return information about the next nearest object. This can be handy in crowded areas or with overlapping objects, where your first click may not get the desired object; in such cases, you can click "Next" until Guide finds the object you really wanted. Clicking on "Display" leads to controls over the display of a given type of object. Since you right-clicked on a star, clicking on "Display" here would lead to controls over how stars are displayed (their magnitude limits, how they are labelled, and so on). If you had instead right-clicked on, say, an asteroid, and then clicked "Display", you would get a somewhat different set of controls including options specific to asteroid display. Clicking on "More Info" leads, logically, to more information. The amount and type of information will depend on the object. For some objects, Guide may be able to find information in a half dozen catalogs; for obscure objects, perhaps only one. On Acubens, "More Info" is about 150 lines of data. First, data from the Hipparcos catalog is provided, giving such details as position, magnitude, and proper motion. Many terms are in light blue; you can click on them to get information about them. In fact, the remarks data is an extension of the help system, so you can get added
Previous page Page 14 Next page Table of Contents