Hi folks,

Martin wrote:

"...And why not forget about it because it's too big and
useless for most of us?"

A fair question. I think most of us will find this to be true.
For the majority of uses, A2.0 is already more than we really need.

However, when told that the precision of some parts of Guide
was more than most people would ever need, I made a comment about
how "one can never be too rich, too thin, or have too much
accuracy in one's astronomy software." To which many would add:
"Or have too much data for your astronomy software to play with."
If USNO-B1.0 can be made available in a practical manner, few of
us will say, "Thanks, but I've got enough data."

I don't see the CD vs DVD issue as being an "either/or". Were
I to do it, I'd be mindful that making DVDs under Linux is not (I
am given to understand) very robust yet. I'd be more inclined to
install the hard drive, boot to Linux, and make the hundred or
so CD-Rs, usable from any OS. These could be copied to Windows
hard drives, and from there to DVDs.

At that point, we would still have a big stack of CDs. People
who wanted to copy them could certainly do so. Others, willing
to shell out a few bucks for a DVD-ROM drive, could borrow a
smaller set of DVDs instead, then copy them to their hard drive.

(Alternatively, since Linux can access Windows partitions,
you could copy the files from the hard drive supplied by USNO to
a Windows-formatted hard drive. In that case, the CD-R requirement
goes away.)

I should perhaps mention that commercial replication of B1.0
(or A2.0) is expressly forbidden. Any copying of it will be priced
solely to recover the costs of production and shipping!

-- Bill