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The "Gregorian Calendar" option lets you toggle between Julian and Gregorian calendars. The Julian calendar is usually used for all dates before 1582, and in some countries, was used for many years thereafter. You will probably wish to use Gregorian dates for all dates after 1918 and Julian dates for all those before 1582. For those in between, which calendar was in use varied by country. Britain, and therefore its colonies, used Julian dates until 1752. Japan changed over in 1873. Russia/the USSR changed over in 1918. Clicking on "Current Time" causes Guide to look at your computer's clock and to use its date and time. You can get the same effect at any point in the program by hitting the F3 key, or by clicking with the right mouse button on the time shown in the legend area. Clicking on any of the twelve month keys resets the time to the same date in that month. Outside the Time Box, hit Alt-0 to reset the time to midnight UT. If you want to reset the time by typing it in, use the "Enter Time" feature in the Extras menu (page 52), or left-click on the time zone shown in the legend. 15: PLANETARY ANIMATION AND EPHEMERIS CREATION Using the Animation Menu you can watch planets, asteroids, satellites, comets and stars move in time-lapse animation. This menu may also be used to record the tracks left by an object over time or to list ephemerides in a file. For reasons that will become apparent, animation, ephemerides, and tracks are linked concepts in Guide. From the main menu, use the Animation option. The Animation Menu looks like this: Animation Dialog Add a Trail Make Ephemeris Make an .AVI By default, the "Add a Trail" and "Make Ephemeris" options are grayed out, until you have specified a moving object (one within the solar system) by right-clicking on it. To use animation, turn on the Animation Dialog, and zoom and pan the chart area to show the solar system object(s) you want to see animated. Set the animation rate in the dialog to the desired value. You may set step sizes from one second to over a hundred years, either directly (by clicking on the button showing the animation rate in the dialog) or by using the "Faster" and "Slower" buttons in the dialog.
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