Hi folks,
Alan Cahill wrote:
"...I have now downloaded Bills new TDF file, and goto works using star
names.. but not numbers."
You can modify this by editing LX200.TDF and cutting out the line
"go to 30 30" (in the 'reference stars') section, and by changing
"text 30 20" to read "text 1 3" (in the 'alignment stars' section).
Unfortunately, you can get it to respond to the numbers or the names,
but not both at once.
Don't rush to do this, though. I got a comment via private e-mail
from Bob Elliott about beefing up the precision of the RA/decs. That
prompted me to write up a few lines of code to match the LX-200 list
to Hipparcos data, to allow me to produce a list with (a) better
positions and (b) extra fields for HIP number and magnitude. The
result is now posted, as before, at
http://www.projectpluto.com/lx200.zip
Alan's comment prompted me to think that having Guide respond to
numbers, rather than names, makes more sense for this dataset. After
all, you can get at names via "Go To... Object Name", which is more
convenient anyway. So I made that change as well.
About overwriting an existing "saved mark": It used to be that if
you saved two marks with the same name, both would appear in the "Load
a Mark" dialog, and you could not tell which was which. I changed
this a while back so that the second mark would replace the first.
Oliver, thanks for mentioning the double star observing list... I
forgot to add that to my previous post.
The .ETB file mentioned by Masaki Kouda, listing asteroid occultations
visible in Japan in 2002, will be part of the next Guide update.
Joe, I've not forgotten about the 'last four or five' idea. You may
have noticed that I did modify Guide recently to remember the last
entered object (as well as things such as the last entered NGC object,
and last entered date/time, and so on for relevant dialogs). Your
idea could be very useful, especially if generalized in this manner:
that is, when you hit 'Extras... Enter Time', you might see a list
of the last four or five date/times you'd entered. But there are a lot
of ideas lined up on the runway in front of this one.
More later...
-- Bill