Hi folks,

Some of you will be seeing this twice, since I accidentally put
it on the Minor Planet Mailing List first:

LX-200 SYNCH/FOCUS CONTROLS:

Guide offers _two_ ways to synch the LX-200. Both are described at

http://www.projectpluto.com/update7c.htm#new_lx_200_sync

The "original" way, as provided by Meade, is good for visual
observers. As a CCD observer, you may like the "new" way better.

I didn't realize this, but I never documented the fact that Guide _does_
now support focus control. I only mentioned it on this group:

A HREF="http://www.egroups.com/message/guide-user/806

NEOCP TROUBLES:

Remember a few days ago, when the NEOCP Ephemerides started
defaulting to a different format? Looks as if they're back to the
"full base-60" format now, with an extra digit of precision in RA.
I'd assume somebody complained about the truncated base-60, so they
decided to switch back. I just updated NEOCP.ZIP to keep current:

http://www.projectpluto.com/neocp.zip

DISPLAY OF HORIZONS-BASED EPHEMERIDES

NEOCP.ZIP has also been modified to be able to show ephemerides
from JPL's "Horizons" system. (It was already showing ephemerides
from NEODyS and the MPC Minor Planet Ephemeris systems). With this
change, all four of the 'major' ephemeris creation systems are
supported.

"Horizons" allows you to create an ephemeris for just about any
object, including spacecraft such as Galileo, Cassini, and Stardust.
There's been some interest in tracking such objects (Stardust just
made a close pass by the earth), so it seemed well to include this.

DOUBLE LABELS IN USER-ADDED DATASETS:

Yup, I'm getting them too. Looking into this one.

-- Bill