Hi Bill and Guide Users,
first I want to introduce myself:
My name is Oliver Kloes, I am from Germany and
using GUIDE since one year with a LX200.
Now my concerns:
Problems with new update:
I have a problem with the update of "geonames.dat".
With the new file I have no more this great amount of cities in France, but no
german cities at all! The reason for this: I am using the file
"dgeo_err.dat" for more german cities with correct spelling. If I am
erase that file, I have german cities back on the chart (fewer and uncorrect
spelling) . My question: How can I use the
new "geonames.dat" AND "dgeo_err.dat" together. I want to use the
extended listing for Germany.
Since I am using the new update, I can't click on
lunar features (features set "on") for "more info" anymore, get every
time the information for the moon. Only after hitting the "next" button,
you get "feature info", but it is the "next" feature.
Some suggestions for GUIDE:
At the marks of object trails, it would be
nice to see the date/time on screen like on charts in magazines ( e.g. Sky and
Telescope).
A table of the dates of minima/maxima of the
most prominent variables at "Ouick Info" or, much better, seperate table
for a user-defined period.
If I am clicking on a variable, there is a option
to calculate the next date of ninima/maxima for this star.
Appointments calendar for GUIDE: You can write at
this calendar celestrial events you are interested. An "alarm" (visual/acoustic)
x minutes before short events (like occultaions) would prevent from getting lost
in time while observing and missing the event.
It is still difficult at high level to click
on objects with a big area (e.g. open clusters, hitting stars all the time, not
the object info). A small cross, which marks the center position would
help.
For users of off-axis-guiders: At the "CCD Frame"
option you can look for guide stars for the ST 7-9 imagers, because there is the
frame of the guiding chip. It would be very helpful, if you can see the
field of the guiding prisms of off-axis-guiders this way. The size of the
field would not be absolutley correct, because it depends on which eyepiece
would be used, but it would help very much for searching useful guiding
stars in advance. I am using the Lumicon Giant Easy Guider and want to do some
testing in the next weeks to determine the field size and distance to center of
the 35 mm frame at the different lens positions of the guider. If any guide-user
have already this informations, let me or Bill know.
A view from the "top" of the solar system (90
degrees to the ecliptic) for checking planet positions to each other. (Good for
animation too)
Clear skies and thanks, Bill, for this
fine software.
Oliver