Hi folks,
Thomas, the 'quick info' comet magnitude limit is _not_ discussed in
the manual. The only place it is mentioned is at
http://www.projectpluto.com/mar_fmt.doc
the documentation for the format of .MAR files. And even there, you
would have to dig a bit to find the description of line 61:
--------------- Clip from MAR_FMT.DOC begins ------------
61 quickinf -1 110 150 1 0 0
(cut irrelevant paragraphs)
The third number, '150', indicates that Quick Info should list
all comets brighter than magnitude 15.0. Resetting it to zero shuts
off the list completely.
--------------- Clip from MAR_FMT.DOC ends ------------
At one time, I was going to have a dialog box in which you could
select which items you wanted in Quick Info ("show me four months of
lunar phases, the Jovian satellite events visible tonight, photometric
data, asteroids to mag 13, and that's it.") That hasn't happened yet
(and is not a big priority), but you can still edit STARTUP.MAR.
That said, I'd be surprised if the comets were causing this slowdown.
Try going into "Tables... List Current Comets", and see if it's slow.
I really can't think of any one part of Quick Info that would create a
slowdown, though... it is indeed supposed to be 'quick'!
Now, regarding the occultation of SAO 158687 by Uranus on 10 Mar 1977:
Guide does indeed consider it a "miss" in low-precision mode, and a "hit"
in high-precision mode. But the occultation map does not show the event
being visible in Perth or India. And in 'high precision' mode, I'd
expect the limit of the occultation to be found to within perhaps 100 km,
with most of the error due to uncertainty about the position of the star.
I believe this was the event that resulted in the discovery of the rings
of Uranus? Perhaps this is what was observed from Perth and Kavalur?
As Owen suggests, the quickest way to get to a solar eclipse is to hit
':' (Shift-';'). I made the occultation system very general, so people
could show events such as this Uranus/SAO 158687 event. But most people
just wanted to see solar eclipses... so I put in a hotkey intended for
exactly that purpose and no other.
The method Denis Boucher mentions, where you click on the two objects
involved, is still needed for events other than solar eclipses.
Also, you'll notice that if you make a table of solar eclipses, click
on one (so Guide shows you the sun and moon at that date), and hit ';',
Guide insists on showing a chart for the _following_ solar eclipse! I've
fixed this, and this misbehavior will vanish in the next update. This
will be posted early in the next millennium. (Those insisting the next
millennium does not begin until 2001 should read this:
http://www.projectpluto.com/calendar.htm#y2000
-- Bill