Hi folks,

Well, looks as if it's been a busy day on the list. Some quick comments:

Stephen Thacker wrote: "Anyone using the Dobdriver from Tech 2000,
along with Guide?" I can pretty definitely say the answer is no. I
started out adding DD support with enthusiasm. I ran into some problems
and decided to come back to it later... that was about a year ago, and
I can't say that I'm there yet. To the best of my knowledge, it doesn't
work at all. (And yes, I ought to remove or gray out that option.)

Paulo, about finding objects in user-added datasets: yes, this can
be somewhat of a pain. In _some_ cases, providing a list of available
objects and letting the user click on one would do the job, because the
number of objects is not very great. This doesn't work as well for
enormous catalogs.

The question has come up a few times, and _every_ time, it involves
exactly one object: the quasar 3C 273.

Jost, sorry about the lack of a reply on the new IMO "limiting magnitude"=
file... I did indeed get that, and posted it at

http://www.projectpluto.com/extras.htm#new_IMO_fields

James, about the assorted scope control systems: I can't speak to the
COAA system, since this is the first I've heard of it. (Background info:
COAA = Centro de Observacao Astronomica no Algarve, "Center for
Astronomical Observation in the Algarve", in Portugal.) Given what I _do_
know about COAA, though, I'd expect this to be a well thought-out system.

Encoder will absolutely, no question about it, work just fine with
Guide. I'm pretty sure the SS2K will also work just fine, in LX200
emulation mode. I'm still looking into this.

Regarding the comments Owen, Denis, and Maik made about DSS: yes,
I'd like to have Guide use other DSS servers. (There are now about six
of them, I think, in Canada, Italy, Germany, Japan, and... someplace
else I don't remember offhand.) The problem is that (as best I can tell)
only the STScI one supports the method Guide uses to "grab" an image.
I've not given up hope, but getting to other servers may not happen
very soon.

Probably, though, getting Guide to download A2.0 data is a higher
priority. This has the advantage that A2.0 data is much less trouble to
download (fewer bytes) than DSS data. Now that Guide is Web-aware enough
to grab files via HTTP, I expect to have it be bright enough to grab
current asteroid/comet/satellite elements automatically, and perhaps be
bright enough to figure out when various files need to be updated.

Guide does indeed get only first-generation DSS scans. The second-gen
ones are much larger, of course, since they have 1.0 arcsec pixels
instead of 1.7 arcsec pixels. They also aren't available for the entire
sky (last I checked). And yes, it might make a good 'option'.

-- Bill