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Enter location name [ ] Use geocentric position Humidity: 20% Temperature: 20 C Pressure: 760 mm Hg The very first item tells you from where you are looking at the sky. If you click on it, you will get a long list of Solar System objects. You can select one, and after that, all planets, moons, and so on will be drawn from that planet (or satellite). You can see what Jupiter and its moons look like from one of Jupiter's moons, or what the Earth looks like from the Moon or other planets. (The view of the inner moons of Saturn as viewed from Japetus is particularly recommended.) This can be very interesting and educational, although most Guide users cannot travel outside Earth and near-Earth orbits. Most Guide users can set their viewpoint on the Earth with the "Enter location name" button. Click on this, and enter the name of your city or town, and Guide will (usually) figure out the corresponding latitude and longitude. In the US, this can be a name plus two-letter state abbreviation: "Augusta, ME", or "Houston, TX"; or it can be a five-digit postal (ZIP) code, such as "04008". Outside the US, it can only be a name, and unfortunately, the number of recognized cities is not very great. So most people will have to enter a latitude/longitude position. This can be found on most maps, or with a GPS receiver. You usually do not need to be nit-pickingly precise about this. Guide uses your place on the earth to calculate rise and set times and to get better accuracy on planetary positions. (For example, a solar eclipse visible on one part of the earth may not be visible at another, because the moon isn't exactly in the same spot in the sky.) An accuracy to a degree (meaning about 111 kilometers or 70 miles) will get rise and set times to within about four minutes. But if you want to get good positions for artificial satellites, or times for eclipses and occultations, you will want an accuracy of at least one kilometer. Systems of latitude and longitude are also defined for other planets. The center of the visible side of the moon (as seen from Earth) is defined to be at latitude 0, longitude 0. If you select "Luna" as your home planet, and set those values, the Earth will be shown very near the zenith. (It wanders a bit around that point, due to librations, as described on page 15.) The next item, "Alt 100 meters", tells you that your point of view is 100 meters above sea level. Once again, you need usually be only approximately correct here. Clicking on the "Use geocentric position" causes Guide to ignore the lat/lon/altitude values; instead, your viewpoint will be from the center of the earth (or whatever home planet you have selected).
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