Hi folks,

I went over the Astro-Physics Web site in hopes of finding some
way in which their protocol differs from the "real" LX-200 one.
There are indeed differences, but most involve commands Guide doesn't
use. I _did_ find one small oddity, in the command to specify the
declination to which the scope ought to slew, and I've e-mailed
Astro-Physics in hopes of getting comments about this. Those curious
about the specifics can read that e-mail at

http://www.gwi.net/~pluto/ap.txt

Bernd, thanks for the comments about the SBIG chip placement data.
I'd e-mailed SBIG about this, and very shortly afterward, got an
"I've added it; look here" reply from Michael Barber. Chalk one up
for SBIG.

I hadn't realized that the MegaTEK had a guider chip, much less
_two_ guider chips, one on each side of the main chip! (The
accompanying text on that page says that this allows for correction
for field rotation, especially useful on alt/az scopes. At least,
I think that's what it says; my German is mediocre at best.) One
problem I see is that both chips are very small, with about 1% the
area of the main chip. Getting a good guiding star on one of the
chips might be painful; getting one on _both_ of them at the same
time might be almost impossible. But it's an interesting idea.

In any case, allowing for two (or more) guider chips required
only a very small modification to Guide, and I've made it.

-- Bill