Hi David,

Errrmmm... my apologies; 'mpc_stat.dat' is used for _display_
of the MPC stations as a user-added dataset. Toggle that dataset
on and hit ':', and zoom in near Canberra, and E14 (and several
other nearby stations) will appear.

For the "enter location name", Guide relies on the file 'stations.txt'.
And that dates back to when the Guide 8 CDs were made, and
lacks the new non-numeric codes. Download this:

http://www.projectpluto.com/stations.txt

and entering E14 will work.

Oliver, when you hit ':', Guide first looks for the nearest new moon.
The reason for this is that you can set the approximate date of an
eclipse, while perhaps being a day or two late; then hit ':', and
Guide will find the event anyway. Similar concerns arise for
conjunctions; if you happen to note that an asteroid is near a
star, you want Guide to "find the conjunction", even if it's got
to back up a few days to do it.

After hitting ':', use of 'next eclipse' or 'prev eclipse' will get
you to any desired event.

More generally, I get the idea you were looking for a way to
enter geographic mode without concern for eclipses of any sort.
I've thought about adding such a function for several non-eclipse
related purposes:

(1) Enter this mode, zoom in on the chart, and say: "This is
my observing location." In some ways, this is simpler than use
of city names, or MPC codes, or entering latitude/longitudes,
or entering a US postal ZIP code (all of which Guide supports).
Right now, you can do this by hitting ':', zooming in on the
observing location, and using "Extras... Set Lat/Lon from chart."
Not a bad thing, but it's hard to see why you should have to
show a solar eclipse in order to set your observing location.

(2) Display of the currently-illuminated half of the world. Possibly
combined with display of the regions where a given event is
currently above the horizon. You might see that "there was
a gamma-ray burster at _this_ RA/dec at this time", set that
RA/dec and time in Guide, and then have Guide show you where
that event was above the horizon and seen in darkness. (This
would also lead nicely to display of regions in which lunar
eclipses are shown... though I do have a little freeware program,
http://www.projectpluto.com/luneclip.htm , devoted solely to
that purpose.)

(3) Display of artificial satellite tracks. This would probably
work a bit the way the current "Animation... Add a Trail"
function does, except that after making such a trail for
a satellite, showing its path through the sky over a given
time span, you could go into "Geo" mode and see its
path over the earth for the same time span.

(4) Simply for use as an "atlas". Not a really good or
detailed atlas, I admit, but you could use it for one.

-- Bill